FIC: CC: Battle Royale Part 1

["jab21kill" <the.evil.guy@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Title:	Chaotic Circumstances

Author:	Joshua

Disclaimer:	Yet another post-Halloween costume AU BtVS crossover.

Summary:	The gang, on a whim, dressed up as various X-men, and Ethan's
was the only shop in town to boot so EVERYBODY changed.  Buffy, as a
joke, went as Cyclops, Willow as Jean Grey i.e. Phoenix, Xander went
as Iceman, and Cordelia went as Rogue.  And rather than demons,
everybody else dressed up in hundreds of *OTHER* costumes ranging from
books, movies, stereotypes ("Pirates", "Nurses", "Army", "Strippers",
"Cops", etc, etc, etc) to animes, comics, and historical figures.

AN:	I blame ziziggy123 author of "Sunnydale Berserker" and Anime Ronin
author of "Of Scoobies and X-Men" for the inspiration, if you want to
call it that, for this little piece of fanfiction.  Mostly it came
from Berserker in seeing how Buffy and the brand new Xander aka
Wolverine were getting along and it struck me as peculiar that
"Wolverine" just NEVER gets along with a person named "Summers".  Then
I started brainstorming 'What if' Buffy did dress up as Cyclops, and
it became permanent the same way Xander dressing up as Wolverine did?
Then I went further, and further, and further still and came up with
all that follows.  If you like, GREAT!  If you don't, <shrug> eh,
that's ok too.

AN2:	I am always open to input, that is not pure uneducated dribble
that is often referred to as "Flames" and usually involve cursing. 
Sometimes in numerous languages as well.  But if you have constructive
criticism, I always listen and try to reply to such, and if you have
suggestions about where to go from here, those I *REALLY* listen too
and enjoy and always reply back to.

Furthermore, Special Thanks goes out to the few (can count them on one
hand) loyal readers that helped me a great deal in preparing and
writing this chapter of Chaotic Circumstances.  You all know who you
are, so Thank You Very Much!

E-mail/Reviews:	the.evil.guy@xxxxxxxxxx and jab21kill@xxxxxxxxx 

;>


Battle Royale (Part 1)

Right after school was out, Jake and his friends met right outside of
the Middle School, not far from the High School.  Besides the rest of
his Crew, Kevin, who had encountered those strange youths, the ones
who had dressed up as the X-Men and were now mutants themselves, had
joined them and it only took a moment to guarantee that everyone was
there before they moved on in silence.

	Jake looked back, double-checking for himself one more time that Ax's
holographic costume imaging projector was working properly.  It was
still highly experimental, and it had been constructed between the six
of them practically over night, yet besides the lack of an actual
forcefield matrix, the holo-cloak seemed to be functioning within
normal parameters.

	Despite the fact that Tobias, Cassie, and Ax were all now very alien
species, it was Ax alone who couldn't casually hide his
'alien-status'.  There actually wasn't much difference between
Betazoids and humans anyway, with the exception of the DNA, a few
differences in brain-chemistry, and the fact that they were ALL
telepathic, the two species could practically be called cousins. 
Tobias was admittedly half-human, but it was the half-Vulcan side that
caused the most grief.  Even a half Vulcan still had green blood, and
then of course there were the ears.  Thankfully, Tobias had rather
long hair and it was used to cover the malformation.

	Once they were to the High School, Jake noticed some of the others
that had been at the meeting that morning gathering near the road.  If
he recalled correctly, it was Mark, the boy that had dressed as a
vampire and still had certain abilities but was not a true vampire,
the younger girl Sydney, who happened to be carrying Iczel around like
it was a high-tech backpack.  There were another three people with
them that Jake did not recognize.

	Even as Jake lead his group towards Mark and Sydney and the others,
another two from the meeting, Scott Hope and Amy Madison, joined them.
Without offering any warning, Jake simply walked up to them and asked
point blank, "You guys have the address, right?"

	"And the directions, Willow gave them to me," Sydney answered.

	"We just finished talking with Xander," Amy spoke up as the entire
group began walking down the road, "He said the rest of them would
meet us there.  Something about a . . ."

	"Scooby meeting," Scott laughingly filled in.

	The Star Fleet kids, as the older teens were beginning to think of
the Middle-schoolers, shared a glance at one another before conceding
to Jake, who nodded back at each of them.

	"What?" Scott asked.

	"They're meeting in private," the once-Star Fleet Captain answered,
"Most likely in order to determine their own next course of action, as
well as to decide upon the loyalties and reactions of the rest of us.
I'm really not surprised.  Given that those . . . X-Slayerettes you
called them?  Given that they've been fighting demons and vampires on
this Hellmouth for the better part of a year, nearly two, of course
they're a very tight-knit group, and they won't take kindly to
outsiders suddenly wanting to join in.  Let's just hope that they
aren't as paranoid as they are brave."

	Scott and the others shared their own glances, but the questions stopped.

	Once they were far enough away from the crowds, Kevin announced that
he was going to transform into Prime.  It was a very . . .
interesting, or as all the girls put it, disgusting process, but the
final result left all the females just as gushy over the Ultra's
inhumanly bulging muscles as much as they'd been squealing over the
slime before.

	Given that they now had a superhero walking with them, Ax asked
permission first and then disengaged the holo-cloak and resumed his
'natural' Andorian appearance.

	About a mile from where the X-Slayerettes had said the junk yard was,
the rest of the older teenagers, as well as the three adults, joined
the growing group of Halloween victims, and it was the girl, Buffy,
leading the rest of the way to the abandoned lot.

	Buffy in front, the group started heading for the small little shack
they'd found in the center of the yard, the mutant Slayer fiddled with
her crimson sunglasses a bit.  Something was making her twitchy, and
not just the fact that her mother was here, or even the fact that she
tended every now and again to hear Willow's private thoughts, (or at
least the thoughts that were about Buffy herself).  It was something else.

	"Gosh!  What is that smell!" Prime exclaimed, holding his hand over
his nose.

	"Yeah, we're going to have to find out what's causing that.  Rusted
metal and junk like this doesn't typically smell," Buffy agreed.

	Just as they were passing the last turn that would put them almost
right in front of the shack, Buffy stopped solid, several of the
others behind her bumping into her, but the Slayer didn't budge so
much as an inch after stopping.

	"Buffy, what . . . ?" Willow asked, and then they all noticed what
the Slayer already had.

	Standing right in front of the shack was a group of nine individuals,
and right out in front was Harmony Kendall, in yet another tight black
leather outfit, sword in hand.

	"Time we finish what we started Cordelia!" she screamed.

	"Crap," Buffy cursed, her eyes dancing over the group arrayed before
them.

	"OK, she's seriously gone off the deep end now," Brittany commented
as she pulled out her own blade.

	Willow's eyes were dancing just as much as Buffy's until her eyes
locked onto one individual in particular, her mind almost reeling with
the amount of pure psychic force she felt radiating off of the boy she
was looking at.  "Cassie, raise your shields and protect everyone that
you can, I'll cover the rest!" she ordered.

	The Betazoid nodded and a strain of concentration masked her face,
and to make sure she pulled her friends, Scott, and the few others
that had no hope of properly defending themselves, closer to her.

	"Who are you people, what are you doing here?" Buffy shouted out.

	"Meet my new friends loser," Harmony crowed. "They'll make sure
nobody can interfere this time while I take Cordelia down!"

	"Is she obsessed or something?" Xander asked the white-striped brunette.

	"Uh, saying yes would be an understatement," the Rogue mutant responded.

	"Allow me to do the introductions," an older man, maybe 30, 35 years
old stepped forward, next to Harmony, and holding her shoulder to keep
her quiet.  "I am the Gamesmaster, and I would like to play a game
with you and mine and Harmony's new friends.  The eight of you willing
to fight, against the eight fighters I have gathered here against you.
The stakes are really quite simple, whoever wins maintains control
over this ground, and decides who gets to die and who doesn't.  And on
the off chance that you do not play . . ."

	One of the younger individuals, a boy no more than 8 or 9 years old
suddenly began to fly several feet of the ground, his eyes glowing a
burning red, highly similar though subtly different from when Buffy's
eyes sparked with crimson energy.  No doubt it was well within the
boy's powers to shoot laser beams from his eyes, on top of flying
there was no way for anyone else to know what all he could do just yet.

	Another young boy shouted out a word, "SHAZAM!" before a bolt of
lightning came down and in the boys place was a BIG man in a red and
gold uniform, a giant lightning bolt on his chest.  Even Buffy, one of
the more fictionally-challenged of the group, recognized Captain
Marvel when she saw him.

	Three others stood out against the rest, mostly because of the way
they were dressed and how they looked in general.  One was all in
green and had metal gauntlets visible on his arms, while the other
two, who could have been brothers, were all in black, looking pale and
if not for the bulging veins and red-eyes, making them look like they
hadn't gotten any sleep since Halloween, most would think they were a
pair of vampires.  These two also carried familiar-looking metal hilts
at their waists, but if these were weapons or not, no one could tell
at the moment.

	Once Gamesmaster made his threat however, the one in green put a
familiar looking metal-bolted mask over his smooth un-scarred face and
did something to his gauntlets to reveal several weapons coming out of
them.  The other two held out their hands and the two hilts at their
waists practically flew into them before they activated with a
snap-hiss, revealing them as two crimson lightsabres.

	"Well," the Gamesmaster finished up, "I'm sure you can figure it out."

	"Any rules to this game of yours?" Buffy growled out, getting into a
ready stance.

	"No running away, the battles must take place in this lot, and no
sideline help.  If one of your extras decides to interfere, they
should be involved from the beginning," the man snapped out.  "Now . .
. begin!"

	Before any of the newcomers could do anything, Harmony raced forward,
screaming her head off, aiming straight for Cordelia.  Buffy, Xander
and Willow all made to get in her way, but Harmony wasn't the only one
to charge.

	Buffy was knocked off her feet by a blue and black blur, which
solidified into the boy that had been flying and still had glowing
eyes.  Not too dissimilar from the way her own eyes glow whenever she
gets angry, now that she realized it.  Kipping up to her feet, the
mutant Slayer faced her opponent, imagining the trigger in her mind,
crimson energy beginning to flow from her optics.

	The very same youth that she had felt such tremendous psychic energy
flowing off of swept Willow aside with a wave of his hand.  Barely
managing to raise her force shield in time to protect herself, the
redhead skidded along the ground like a stone on a pond before
slamming painfully into a rust covered truck.  She got up in time to
see the blond young man flying at her in a telekinetic aura of sky-blue.

	As Harmony was almost upon them, Iceman and Rogue prepared themselves
for a fight, one covering himself in ice armor, the other balling her
fists.  Just before she could strike though, the other Cordettes
rushed forward, Brittany with her katana blocking Harmony's strike
while Charlotte and Erin tackled her away.

	"Enough of this Harmony!  We might have listened to you once, but
Cordy's right!  We don't have to do this!  We /shouldn't/ be doing it!
Now stop this before somebody gets hurt!" Brittany shouted for reason.

	"Get out of my way!" Harmony screamed, getting back to her feet.

	Suddenly, the three that had stood out the most attacked, the one
mostly in green and with the machines, which actually turned out to be
blasters connected to some kind of armor he was wearing, launched a
few missiles at the bunched up group.  Without a word, everyone
scattered, Cordy having no choice but to go forward towards Harmony.

	The spirit of Nemesis screaming within her at the underhanded tactic,
Brittany cried aloud and attacked the young man, her katana clanging
with each scratch against his armor.

	All of a sudden, Xander found himself with Charlotte and Erin, facing
off against the two brothers in black, and he began to have a bad
feeling about this.

	In the aftermath of the explosion and immediate fighting, Prime and
Sydney with Iczel found themselves squaring off against the two that
were left.  The Power of Shazam incarnate, Captain Marvel, and another
teenager in a blue and red cosmic uniform, glowing bands on his wrists
as he hovered there.

	"There's no way I can do this!" Sydney shouted.

	"You can!" Iczel and Prime both shouted back at her.

	"I'll take Cap, don't worry, I think I'm stronger than him," Prime
winked at the girl, causing her to blush before he raced forward,
leaving her alone.  Well, not entirely alone.

	"Let's do it Sydney!" Iczel shouted.

	Sydney nodded at her partner and screamed, "POWER UP!"

	There was a nearly blinding explosion of light around the pair before
they were surrounded in a sphere of white energy, and before anybody
could stop blinking enough to even bother looking again, the energy
conformed around the female warrior Iczelion, yet before her opponent
could comment on the fact, before the energy had fully dissipated, she
was moving, striking him with an uppercut before flashing around to
his back to deliver a devastating kick and then a heel-uppercut to
blast him higher into the air.  Only then, after that combo did anyone
get a look at the cosmic warrior Iczelion.

	It was still Sydney, just the girl wearing space armor made up of
Iczel's body.  Where the armor didn't manage to cover, thankfully a
red jumpsuit seemed to have appeared over the girl's body.

	"Cute," the young man said as he floated back down to the earth,
rubbing his jaw slightly.

	That was when Sydney noticed that the boy's costume was exactly like
that of Captain Marvel's!  The Captain Marvel from Marvel Comics, the
Kree warrior that had Cosmic Awareness, Nega-Bands that fired
destructive bolts among other things, and on top of all that, was THE
most respected hero in the Marvel Universe.  Until he died the third
time.  She also remembered that his name was MarVell.

	<I know you're worried about hurting an innocent person Sydney, but
until we can find a way to convince him and explain everything to him,
we have to defend ourselves, and our friends!> Iczel telepathically
reminded her.

	/'That's right!'/ Sydney realized.  He wasn't /really/ Captain
MarVell, he was some innocent person that had just dressed as him for
Halloween and now was being taken advantage of by that Gamesmaster guy!

	"What's your name?" she asked as they both hovered there, standing off.

	Surprised at being spoken to in anything that wasn't trash-talk, the
Kree superhero startled, just hovering there for several long moments,
before finally answering in a quiet voice, "Tim.  Tim Smith.  Who... 
Who are you?"

	"My name is Sydney, Sydney Pierson.  Let me guess, you dressed as
Captain Marvel for Halloween, right?" she asked.

	Tim just shrugged, looking a bit uncomfortable.  "Uh, yeah.  Who'd
you go as?"

	"Iczelion," Sydney confessed with a sly little grin.

	Tim's eyes went wide, apparently having seen the anime, then he gave
her a rogue grin and squinted his eyes in challenge.  "This should be
interesting then," he spoke, but it wasn't 'Tim's' voice.  It sounded
like the guy that called himself Gamesmaster had overlaid his voice on
top of Tim's.  Startled by this, Iczelion looked down at the ground to
see the man called Gamesmaster grinning insanely up at her.

	<Sydney!> Iczel warned just in time for the girl to see Tim firing a
Nega-Blast at her.  She raised her shield just in time, the energy
dissipating around it.

	<Gamesmaster is controlling everyone, we can't hurt them Iczel!>
Sydney wailed in her mind.

	<As against my programming as it is, I suggest then that we keep it
close and personal.  Nagisa used to love that.>

	<AND I ONLY TOOK 1 YEAR OF KARATE AND ONLY GOT TO YELLOW BELT!!>
Sydney screamed back, dodging to the side instead of allowing Tim's
blast to hit again.

	<I never said it'd be easy, but neither of us want to hurt this boy,
or any of the others, so we have to take it to hand-to-hand instead of
exchanging lethal energy blasts.> Iczel argued back.

	Grumbling to herself, Iczelion decided not to argue at the moment,
instead concentrating on dodging and making sure none of the blasts
Tim was shooting at her was going to hit anybody or do anything dangerous.

	Back down on the ground, Cordelia and Harmony were sparring.  Well,
not really /sparring/, as Harmony was really trying to hit and kill
Cordelia, and Cordelia didn't have a sword herself, but with the
damage being done to each other, it might as well have been sparring.

	"Hold . . . <grunt> . . . STILL!" Harmony screeched as she kept
missing Cordy with her wild swings.

	"OK," Cordy stopped retreating and stood still, and Harmony still
missed her next swing at the white-striped brunette.  Smirking, she
still didn't move but couldn't let the action go without comment
either.  "Y'know, I've heard the term, couldn't hit the broad side of
a barn, but come on!  I've seen Buffy swing better with a sword in her
hands!"

	"That loser!" Harmony screeched, getting that more pissed off. 
"RAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" the blonde swung with all of her might in a cross
swing at Cordelia's torso, and Cordy still didn't bother moving.

	It happened in a single instant, but for Harmony, that moment would
be played over and over again for the rest of her life.  For that one
moment of absolute rage, Harmony was so adrenalized that her strength,
for that one moment, actually became superhuman.  And so when the
rather poorly-made iron sword, thrown with unstoppable force, met with
the immovable object of Cordy's skin, the inevitable happened.  The
sword shattered in Harmony's hand, nearly breaking said hand as well,
leaving only the hilt and a couple of inches of shaved iron.

	Cordelia frowned and looked down at her right arm where the sword had
struck and saw that the skin was unblemished and thankfully Harmony
hadn't cut at her clothes.  "You know," she said to her rival, rubbing
at the spot on her arm for a second or two, "I actually felt that.  It
tickled," she grinned wickedly at Harmony and with no more warning
than that, threw a left hook right at the socialite's face.

	She watched with amusement as Harmony went flying back, cartwheeling
through the air until she landed, painfully, with her back against the
hood of a broken down Beamer.  Clapping her hands to get rid of dust,
Cordelia smiled to herself and drawled, "Y'know darlin', this is
actually gonna be more fun than I'd thought it'd be."

	In another part of the lot, Buffy was standing off against the boy
that as far as she could tell so far, had all the powers of Superman.
Although she had to admit, it was more the Artic Breath than anything
else that lead her to this conclusion.

	"So, any chance your name is Clark, kid?" she teased, fully in
Slayer-mode.

	"Don't call me kid!" the young boy, no more than 10 years old, if
that.  "And my name is Robert Clarkson.  /Not that it'll do you any
good Slayer!/"  The last bit was said with the Gamesmaster's voice
overlaid over Robert's.  Buffy had heard that trick before, and had
figured out exactly what it meant, but she wasn't too worried about
hurting a kid that had /Superman's/ powers!  She was a little more
worried about him hurting her!

	"Well my name's Buffy.  Buffy Summers," she said before dodging out
of the way of some Heat Vision.  "Nice to meet you.  Kid."

	"Don't call me kid!!" Robert screamed again, shooting another burst
of heat vision at her.

	Buffy back-flipped over it and was a little surprised that the burst
didn't last much longer than a few seconds.  Maybe he couldn't sustain
the lasers for more than that?  Or was it just he didn't have that
much control over his powers yet?  Time to find out.

	"Hey Bobby," she called, triggering her mutant power, "hate to break
it to you, but you ARE a kid!"  The optic blast flashed between them,
electrifying the air and announcing itself with the same sound effects
from the X-Men cartoons and video games.

	Buffy let go of the trigger after the count of three and slowly the
optic energy dissipated, and allowed her to see normally once again. 
And allowed her to see the devastation she had just caused.  The
Slayer blinked in disbelief at the scorched landscape right in front
of her and even metal and cars that had been torn apart by the sheer
force of her optic blast, and about 10 meters straight out, the boy,
Robert, was slowly getting to his feet, his shirt torn in a couple of
places, but otherwise no more harmed than if he'd rolled around in the
dust on purpose.

	"Crud," Buffy sighed and prepared herself for the counterattack.

	It came faster and harder than she expected as the boy quite
literally flew at her at near-supersonic speeds.  She only had enough
time to raise her arms in defense and let herself go limp when the
force of his charge picked her up and blasted her backwards into a
pile of junk.  Once they'd stopped moving Robert hunched over her
half-buried body, he raised his fist for a no doubt devastating full
power Superman-strength punch, and Buffy knew if she didn't do
something she'd be dead, whether Robert intended to kill her or not. 
So she did the only thing she could, keeping her eyes open and locked
on him, she fired off another optic blast.

	Thankfully it worked, blasting the boy high into the air in a high
arch before falling back to the earth with a tremendous crash.  It
also allowed her the time to throw the heavier stuff off of her and
struggle back to her feet.  Rolling her neck and stretching her arms
and legs, the Slayer growled softly to herself, "OK, no more playing
around."

	Moving with Slayer-enhanced speed, Buffy ran straight for the crater
Robert hand landed in and was only now getting out of.  He looked up,
surprised to see her charging him, but that surprise was nothing next
to when she threw a full-Slayer-strength punch right at his face, and
apparently it was enough as it knocked the boy back into crater he'd
just vacated.  The Slayer didn't stop there however, jumping in to
pick the boy back up and then kick him back out of the crater before
jumping back out herself in a smooth flip.

	"That . . . that /hurt/!" Robert exclaimed, holding his face and chest.

	"Yeah, and it'll hurt a lot worse if you keep up this fight, now how
about you giving up?" she argued with him.

	"Superman wouldn't give up!" Robert shouted back, and then the
Gamesmaster's voice overcame Robert's once again, "/And I'm not going
to give up the game just yet my young amateur Slayer.  You'll have to
kill the boy to stop him from killing you!/"

	"Superman doesn't kill," Buffy retorted.

	"/Yes, but this boy doesn't remember it that way, plus, you just hit
him.  For that, you deserve to die!/" Gamesmaster spoke through
Robert.  Then all of a sudden, Robert's face contorted into rage, and
he screamed like a child throwing a temper tantrum, "YOU HIT ME!  I'M
GONNA KILL YOU NOW!"

	"Shouldn't that be "Gonna tell your momma now?" Buffy couldn't help
teasing before jumping away, barely in time to avoid the heat vision
bursts.

	/'Wonder how Willow's doing?'/ Buffy thought to herself as she
struggled to deal with the mind-controlled Superkid.

	Willow was actually doing about as well as Buffy herself was doing,
choosing to stay close to the ground, but still telekinetically flying
around in attempts to subdue and defeat, without harming or killing,
her opponent, who was flying around much the same way she was.

	"Who the hell did this kid dress as?" Willow gasped as she raced down
an alley created by the piles of cars and junk.

	Before she could receive an answer, or even get to the end of the
"alley" she was in, the kid in question suddenly appeared before her,
his blue telekinetic aura blazing around him and holding a couple of
cars that were no doubt soon to be thrown at her.  "My name is
Fredrick Smith," he said calmly, and only as she was a few feet from
him and not running away did she finally see that the boy was barely
13 years old, if that!  "And I dressed up as Franklin Richards, aka
Psi-Lord from the Fantastic Five.  Any other questions?"

	"Yeah," Willow replied, "How come you haven't been keeping up your
mental shields?"

	The boy, Fred, looked confused for several seconds, giving Willow
just the time and opportunity to strike, which she did.  The psi-bolts
hidden in waiting from multiple points around the junkyard, where
Willow had hidden them around this central point, flowed forward with
the speed of thought and attacked the unprotected mind of the young
psychic.

	Psi-bolts weren't something Jean Grey ever used that often.  For one
thing, they had the potential to be lethal, even with a relatively
weak psychic, and Jean Grey was one of /the/ most powerful psychics in
the world, /THE/ most period when she was possessed by the Phoenix,
but then the title went to the Universe instead of just the world.  It
all had to do with the intention behind the attack.  If you wanted to
distract, confuse, or simply knock unconscious the target, then it's
relatively harmless and a very effective attack.  However if the
intention is to kill, control, or destroy . . .

	Against other psychics, a psi-bolt is limited in its usefulness as
they can block it the same way they could block a telepathic probe,
though if the bolt was powerful enough it could still do its damage in
cracking the psychic's shields and put a dent in their energy reserves.

	Willow herself never knew a lethal thought in her entire life, not
even after seeing death herself, she's never honestly wished or
thought of wishing someone else dead.  Jean Grey, an experienced woman
who fought battles and went through things no human, mutant or normal,
should ever be forced to go through, did, once in a while.

	Still, Willow was a little shocked, and very grateful, that her
opponent had been stupid enough to leave his mind practically
unguarded, focusing entirely on telekinetic battles instead of the
battles of the mind.  And all she needed was him unconscious,
defeated, so she could go and help the others to end this thing, and
so that's what she set the psi-bolts to do, to knock him unconscious,
and it was also why she set up so many, at least fifteen, because she
had expected him to at least have a few mental barriers up so the
first few blasts would wear him down and she could finish him off
face-to-face.

	Instead, all fifteen psi-bolts struck simultaneously on his
completely unguarded mind, and after a few seconds of screaming and
grabbing his head, Fred Smith collapsed, unconscious to the ground. 
And if the psi-bolts just /happened/ to look like and be shaped after
the fire bird shape Phoenix was known for, well that was just one
really big coincidence.

	"Whew," Willow breathed a sigh of relief and lowered herself to the
ground.

	"/Oh, I wouldn't breath that sigh of relief just yet my dear,/" a
sinister voice sounded around her, originating from Fred's fallen
body.  Then Willow got the shock of her life as said body was raised
to its feet, but not in the normal way, more like a puppet being
picked up by its strings, and rather forcefully at that.

	The redhead tensed immediately, immensely grateful that she hadn't
lowered her other mental defenses as she'd done her physical ones. 
She watched as Fred, still unconscious, steadied on his feet and the
blue aura returned around him.

	"How . . . how . . . ?" she wanted to know.

	Instead she just heard echoing laughter coming from the distance and
realized who and what it was.

	"Gamesmaster," she hissed, fury blinding her for a moment and she
lashed out with a full telekinetic strike.  Fred flew back, but only a
couple of meters before the boy's own telekinesis caught him and held
him steady.  But Fred was still unconscious, she could feel it!

	Gamesmaster must be controlling him directly now, not just
influencing his reactions, she realized and knew this was going to get
a lot trickier than she thought it was going to be.  Taking to the
air, her hot pink aura flashing around her, she retreated, knowing
that there was NO WAY she could match the amount of raw psychic energy
/still/ pouring off of him, even though he was unconscious and being
controlled by somebody else.

	Willow was no stranger to fear, but Buffy had always been there to
save the day, to share her courage with her friends, and to make sure
that the terror rating never reached heart-attack proportions.  Willow
was beginning to feel terror at very near that level at the mere
thought of going in a head-to-head with the person chasing her even now.

	Prime thought it'd go easier than this.

	After all, how strong /was/ Hercules?  Captain Marvel had the
strength of Hercules, among other things, and he was still human
sized, so Prime with all his bulging muscles and super strength should
easily overpower him in the strength department.

	Prime just forgot that Captain Marvel got smarts, speed, and
durability along with that strength, all from fabled mythological
sources.  As he was finding out, raw strength didn't always win the fight.

	Flying right towards the red and gold clad titan, Prime lead with his
fists, cocking his left back in order to add as much power to the blow
as he could.  Before he could even get close enough though, Captain
Marvel was flying his own fist right at Prime's face, knocking him
back through the air almost past the fence of the abandoned lot. 
Thankfully, the young superhero managed to stop himself, shaking his
head slightly to clear the ringing left from the hit.

	"Dang, this guy's a lot tougher than I thought!" Prime muttered
before flying right back into the battle.

	Captain Marvel was just waiting there for him, arms crossed, cape
flapping heroically behind him, it almost infuriated the Ultra, if not
for the fact that he thought it looked /really/ cool!  Leading in with
his fists again, Prime flew in at a blurring speed right for the
fictional hero that he found himself facing in battle.  Despite the
surrealness of it, the part of Prime that was Kevin was practically
screaming in excitement and joy at what was happening.  It was like a
comic book come to life, and for Kevin Ozborne, that was literally a
dream come true.

	Surprisingly, Prime's punch was allowed to hit, yet what was even
more surprising, to Prime at least, was that said punch had about as
much effect as slapping a concrete block when he was still Kevin. 
Withdrawing his fist, Prime stared in open shock at Captain Marvel,
completely unable to believe what he'd just seen.

	Captain Marvel, in turn, just smirked and then cocked back his right
fist, and before Prime could even say "Oh cr!" the Ultra was falling
like a meteorite, knocking down and over several mountains of junk
before finally coming to a rest near the outer fence.

	Groaning, Prime sat up and looked around, and when he saw that the
fence was less than a foot away from where he'd landed, he came to an
unmistakable conclusion.  "He's holding back!" Prime exclaimed to himself.

	Kevin was never much of a fighter, preferring to compromise or just
avoid situations like that altogether, but his father, when he'd still
been with Kevin and his family, had instilled some basic values,
including the ever famous, "Don't start a fight, but always finish
it", and Kevin, while not always winning, always followed that
philosophy.  He also didn't like it when he was being played with,
which the bullies at his school quite often did.

	Until he proved too dangerous to play with, he grinned to himself as
he took to the air once again.  Time he stopped holding back too.

	He flew back in as fast as he could make himself move, this time not
bothering with hesitating or not wanting to hurt the other kid,
letting his anger guide him in.  Surprisingly, Prime actually hit, yet
even more surprising, given his streak so far, was that Captain Marvel
was very nearly blown out of the junkyard himself!

	Xander watched with amusement as Captain Marvel crashed into a
mountain of junk and then dig himself out again before blazing back up
to fight Prime some more.  Kevin was more like his costumed character
than he realized, which wasn't necessarily a good thing.

	Unfortunately, the living incarnation of Iceman didn't have time to
deal with that right now as he was dodging, to the best of his
ability, flying debris, which somehow the two darkly dressed figures
seemed to be telekinetically throwing at him and the two Cordettes
he'd somehow got teamed up with.  Doubly unfortunate, his capabilities
weren't quite up to par, as the multiple scratches and heavy-hits he'd
gotten attested to.  If he wasn't now 100% sure that his ice-form was
impervious to it, he'd bet that he would be covered in bruises by the
time this was over.

	In fact, the things being thrown aside, the only real threat those
two posed was their red lightsabres, which kept Black Widow and Silver
Sable far enough back from attacking the two of them directly, for
fear of being sliced into itty bitty pieces of cauterized flesh.  And
so far Xander, not willing to kill something that wasn't demonic in
some way, hadn't discovered any way that he could help them, except on
occasion creating an ice wall or two when the two brothers came in
swinging their lightsabres, giving the girls and himself just enough
time to retreat from them.

	Their hasty retreats had finally brought them closer to where
Brittany, aka Nemesis was still relieving her anger on the guy in the
armor, who incidentally seemed to be petrified of the enraged young woman.

	"Hey BRIT-BRIT!!" Xander cried as they ran from the two
lightsabre-wielding maniacs, "We could use a little HELP over here!!"

	"Don't call me Brit-Brit!" Nemesis screamed before finally just
punching the poor guy in his iron mask so hard that he actually fell down.

	"You didn't break a nail, did you?" Erin asked, suddenly concerned.

	"Nah, besides, I've got a manicure on Sunday," she answered casually,
as though they'd just run across one another in the mall.

	"LADIES!!  IF YOU PLEASE!" Iceman roared at them.

	"Well what do you expect us to do?" Charlotte asked.  "They've got
those laser-sword thingies, and they took our guns away from us, and
not even Brit's sword can go against a laser-sword."

	"Hey!" the younger one suddenly whined as the two brothers stopped. 
"They're called Lightsabres!  Say it with me; Light.  Sabers."

	"Ignore them Andrew," the older one sneered, "They're the 'Popular
girls', though sycophantic pea-brained bimbos is more like it.  They
couldn't understand the difference between an X-Wing and a TIE, let
alone properly identify a lightsabre, a tool of the Force, from a life
saver!  A roll of donut-shaped candies!  Hahahahahah!"

	The two started laughing their asses off, occasionally snorting a
little, but Iceman was more paying attention to the changing
expressions on the three Cordettes' faces.

	"Oh, it is so on now," Brittany grated, gripping her blade a little
tighter and stalking forward, Erin and Charlotte right behind her.

	"Uh, yeah," Iceman backed away, knowing when to bow out.  "I'm, uh,
I'm gonna go and finish off that guy dressed like Dr. Doom.  Uh . . .
yeah."

	He quickly ran the other way.

	Explosions rocked the junkyard, some caused by lasers, or other
things, misfiring and hitting something besides their target, or in
other cases, actually hitting their target and knocking them into
several mountains of junk before making a few craters here and there.
Sometimes it was a supernatural body hitting the ground, or other
things, with tremendous force, and still other times it was merely the
effect of a power caused by one of the clashing titans in their fight.
Outside all of it though, which is to say outside of the fight if not
the junkyard, the remainder of the group from the Library that morning
looked on with growing dread and nervousness as the forces of the
Gamesmaster began to reach the upper hand against their friends and
comrades.

	The pair of Cordettes that dressed as and now were reincarnations of
/Noir/, had managed to sneak themselves and the others not fighting
into the lone little shack at the center of it all.  The Gamesmaster
was barely ten feet out from them, standing and looking at everyone
fighting around him, like some kind of psychotic referee, who tended
to make the fights worse rather than calling them out.  Aura had
already suggested that it would be extremely easy for them to end this
by simply putting a bullet in the back of the man's head, but Giles
immediately vetoed the idea, quickly supported by everyone with very
few exceptions, saying that the man was going through the same thing
the rest of them were, and unfortunately had lost himself to either
the powers and abilities he now had, or to the very personality that
had possessed him on Halloween night.

	It wasn't much of an argument in Noir's opinion, but it was what
convinced the others.

	Not willing to start an argument over it, the two young women instead
just took up guard positions, handling their weapons with
professionalism that seemed more surreal due to their age than the
perfection of it.

	In the mean time, Giles was trying to figure out how he and the
others around him could even begin to help their friends and end all
this fighting.

	"Maybe if we could find some clue as to why all the others are taking
their direction from Harmony and that . . . that . . ." he stuttered.

	"Excuse me, Mr. Giles?" Aura calmly interrupted, keeping her eyes on
what was outside, but no one had any doubt that she was fully aware of
absolutely everything going on around her at that very moment.  "But I
believe that Harmony is as much a pawn in this game as any of us are.
It is of course possible that the one calling himself /Gamesmaster/
is in fact somehow influencing or even outright controlling the
actions of everyone out there, even our friends.  Perhaps even we are
being affected by his control."

	"Yes, I had thought of that, but . . ." Giles began.

	"Cassie," Jake interrupted, "that girl, Willow, she told you to
protect us, from what?  And how?  Was it the Gamesmaster's influence?"

	Cassie shook her head.  "At the time, Willow thought the danger was
one of the others, and quite frankly I agreed with her.  The pure
amount of raw psychic power he was exuding . . ." The young black girl
trailed off, shivers running up and down her body.  "But now that I'm
actively blocking all outside mental energies, I /can/ feel exactly
what it is that the Gamesmaster is trying to do.  The thing is, it's
not an actual invasion or probe like typical telepathy.  It feels more
like the link was always there, like a Subspace carrier wave or radio
signal.  He just has somehow found a way to tap into it and to a
point, even control where the wave signal is going to or coming from.
Although now that I've blocked it, I can't get much more information
about it, or him.  If I try to tap into him . . . there's no telling
what could happen, and I'd really rather not try."

	"That's all right.  For now though . . ." Jake trailed off for a
moment before his eyes lit up with inspiration.

	"Marco, Ax, Tobias, can you three come up with a way to completely
block this guy from using his telepathy, or whatever it is that he's
using to control everyone out there?" he asked of the others.

	The three mentioned all startled and stared, first at Jake, then at
each other.  Finally, Marco stepped forward, almost into Jake's
personal space and started shouting at him, "You CAN'T be serious! 
First you drag all of us down here just to 'see what they have to
say', and then it turns out to be a trap for /them/ and we're in
danger of being killed by some random blast or one of them crashing
into us and turning us into the grimy little paste you peel off your
shoe after coming out of a movie theater, and NOW!  Now you want us,
US to make you some random almost magical device to block the
/telepathic/ transmissions of some insane psycho standing out there
that is apparently controlling several /Super Heroes/ into playing his
"/game/".  And to top it all off we don't even /know/ what kind of
telepath, IF that's what he is, what kind of brain chemistry, HECK, he
could be using subspace for all we know!  And to top it all off! 
We're stuck in the end of the 20th Century with technology I wouldn't
use to MAKE A /TOY OUT OF/!!!!  So, JAKE, tell me, do you /REALLY/
expect the three of us to come up with some miracle device that you
need JUST FOR THIS MOMENT?!!  HUH???"

	"Yep," Jake answered with a straight face.

	Marco shrugged and turned back to Tobias and Ax, calmly saying, "Give
us a few minutes, let's see what we've got to work with."  Then the
three of them quickly got to work.

	"Sometimes I wonder about his sanity," Rachel commented.

	"I'm beginning to wonder as well," Giles commented after staring for
a few moments.

	"Cassie, how long can you keep up keeping that guy out?" Jake asked,
referring to the Gamesmaster.

	"As long as necessary," the girl dutifully replied, already the
strain beginning to show in her body and expression.

	"Well if it comes down to it, only block Marco and the others, but
let us know so the rest of us can take . . . precautions," the former
Star Fleet Captain ordered.

	"Yes sir," the Betazoid answered.

	"If she has to drop the protections around the rest of us," Jake
turned to Aura and Cindy, "take the shot.  We probably won't get
another."  Noir simply nodded their agreement and returned to their
watch posts, Aura making sure she had a clear line-of-sight on the
still-standing Gamesmaster at all times.

	"Now wait just one moment!" Giles protested.

	"You can't do that!" Joyce shouted.

	The other kids looked uncomfortable with the concept, but kept their
opinions to themselves for the moment, so Jake turned to the adults. 
Before he could explain his reasoning however, Jenny Calendar stepped
forward.

	"Rupert, Joyce, circumstances aside, that man is a danger to us and
potentially countless others.  It's a hard decision, doubly so when
children are the ones forced to make it, though we can hardly call
Jake and his friends children given their own circumstances," she
said.  "This world is NOT some happy-ending story to be read on the
Internet or be made into some movie-of-the-week.  This is real, hard
life, and we have the right to defend ourselves.  No matter the cause."

	"I will not allow these children, despite circumstances, to become
murderers," Giles shouted.

	"Why don't I just teleport him away, if it becomes necessary?" Joyce
insisted.  "That way he's away from us, and I'll make sure it's some
place remote so he won't be able to hurt anyone else.  Anything better
than killing him outright just because there's the chance he /might/
try to take over our minds!"

	Jake tensed, looking at everyone in turn, save Noir and Ax, Marco,
and Tobias.  Then he nodded.  "Very well," he finally decided.  "If
you can, teleport him to the Moon for all I care.  But if you can't,
if he's still a danger to us, if his control isn't blocked . . ." He
looked over at Aura, who nodded solemnly in return, a cold look in her
eyes.

	"Cassie . . ." he said.

	"I can still keep him out.  For as long as necessary," she answered,
steel-like strength in her voice.  Jake simply nodded and waited for
his miracle.

	Xander almost felt sorry for the brothers, they'd admitted they were
as much a while ago, and then when the guy dressed like Dr. Doom had
jumped up to join them, he pretty much lost all sympathy as even he
could see that those three were bigger dorks than he could EVER have
been at his worst!  But still . . . sending them up against three of
the Cordettes, who themselves had the knowledge, experience, and
abilities of three of the more deadly femme fatales in all Comic Book
History, it was a /bit/ cruel to the young man.

	But then the Trio had to go on insulting and insinuating . . .
/things/ about the Cordettes that he now felt they deserved whatever
they got.

	Then, just as he was about to go and find someone else to fight, he
saw his opening.  The Darth brothers, he jokingly thought of them, had
raised their lightsabres in identical overhead chop fashions, their
eyes focused on their respective targets, but whichever it might have
been didn't matter, their guards were down.  Without conscious
thought, his arms shot forward, ice beams arcing across the distance
in the flash of an eye blink.  Amazingly though, both of the brothers
looked up in shock at the last second and stared straight at the
oncoming mutant attack.  Unfortunately for them they did not react
quickly enough and very soon the lightsabres were covered with solid ice.

	Also, in order to avoid getting their hands just as frozen, they both
had to let go of their sabers, which automatically shut the crimson
blades off, preventing the energy blade from thawing itself out.

	"You . . . you . . . you . . ." the younger one was stuttering.

	"YOU /PEON/!!!!" the older one shouted, his own hands shooting
forward, arcs of pure energy shooting from his hands.

	Going with instinct, Iceman formed an ice-wall at least a full meter
thick between him and them.  Confident he'd sufficiently tipped the
scales, he crossed his arms and smirked to himself.  Until he saw a
spot glowing at the center and watched with a morbid fascination as
the ice block he'd created began to melt very quickly.  When the arcs
of electricity began to race over it, he lost his curiosity and
quickly ran in the opposite direction.

	The sound of the ice block shattering forced him to quicken his pace,
but he knew he couldn't outrace a Dark Side user using Force-Lightning
with nothing but his feet.

	"Screw training, gotta go with instinct," he said to himself and
focused his powers, pointing his hands down and shooting out a blast
of cold, focusing on creating the ice bridge that Iceman was always
known to use to get around in fiction.

	It happened so fast that he really didn't have time to savor the
experience, but it was exhilarating nevertheless.  One second he was
running along the ground, the very next he was moving/sliding along
the very ice he was creating beneath him and for a few moments his
momentum kept up and he actually got pretty far before he lost his
balance and the ice bridge became slightly skewed and he fell down on
his butt.  Thankfully he hadn't gotten very far off the ground, and
kept enough sense to roll with the fall and landed himself behind
another mound of junk, just out of sight of the Darth brothers.

	"OK, so maybe I need a little bit of training," he grumbled to
himself and started crawling around to get back in the fight without
getting blasted the moment he stood up.

	"Thanks Iceman," Silver Sable and Black Widow both muttered with
thick Russian accents, moving in on the frozen lightsabres and with
well-placed drop-kicks shattered the machinery while the Darth
brothers were still distracted by Xander's escape.

	"Looks like the tides have turned boys," Brittany, fully in her
Nemesis persona, teased, stepping up behind them, her katana at her side.

	The brothers turned to nervously look at the femme fatales arranged
against them, suddenly realizing their predicament, and it being
driven home when they saw the scattered components of their
lightsabres on the ground.

	Having apparently spent his anger on Iceman, the older brother huffed
angrily but stayed his hand, just as nervous and fearful as his
younger brother beside him.  Then he caught a sight that made him smile.

	Before the Cordettes could ask him what he was smiling about, or even
before Tucker could taunt them further, the Dr. Doom kid appeared on
the other side of the Cordettes, announcing himself with, "You haven't
forgotten about me, have you Lady Nemesis?"

	"No," another voice off to the side sounded, "we just figured you'd
gone crying home to your mommy by now!"

	Everyone turned, startled, to see Iceman standing on top of another
mound of junk.  Before anybody could really respond, he started
shooting Icebeams at the kid in the Doom armor, never letting up for
even a second.  Of course, despite being startled, Warren didn't just
stand there and take it.  He tried to fire the lasers and other
weapons on his armor, but Iceman didn't give him the chance, stopping
the attacks before they even went anywhere.  At some point he was
actually covered in a pretty thick later of ice, but he then used the
armor to shatter it a second later.

	"What?  You think I didn't make my armor elemental proof!?  I'm just
as brilliant as the great Dr. Doom!  More even!  I won't even catch a
cold from this!" he boasted.

	"What's your name kid?" Iceman asked.

	"Warren, why?" he answered, confused.

	"Needed to know what to put on the memorial," the mutant answered,
holding his hands in front of him, almost as though in prayer.  "I
never wanted to do this.  Not to a living person, but if you idiots
keep this up, you're going to kill someone.  One of my friends.  And
I'll kill you before I let that happen."  Then with a flash, a Freeze
Ball more than twice the size of the ones he'd used on vamps so far
formed between his hands, the pure ice-blue energy dancing in a
spherical form supported by nothing anyone could see.

	"Wait a sec . . ." Warren was startled by hearing a superhero say he
was going to kill him.  "Wait a sec, wait!  WAIT!" he shouted, nervous
and then outright terrified when Iceman reeled back his arm to throw
the lethal attack like a softball, and then it was thrown.

	At the same moment, a streak of hot pink and sky blue energy tore
through the area and the Freeze Ball actually ended up hitting the sky
blue part of the energy, which then slowed down enough to reveal the
boy that had dressed as Psi-Lord, using his powers to destroy what
remained of the ice the Freeze Ball had encased him in, completely
unharmed, which startled everyone, except maybe his opponent, who was
none other than Willow.

	"Get out of his body Gamesmaster!" Willow shouted, as angry as Xander
had ever seen her.  More actually, when he thought about it.

	"/No/," came the dual-voice reply.

	Willow's face contorted into a mask of rage no one had ever seen on
the elfin face before, then the redhead growled, her pink aura
flashing and sparking dangerously before she dive-bombed the other
psychic, leading the charge with a psychokinetic assault that could
obliterate a reinforced armored tank on power alone.  They disappeared
over another hill of junk as another comet of pink and blue energy.

	"Wh-w-what was that?" Warren stuttered, thoroughly shaken by the
encounter, as well as the threat on his life that he'd barely escaped
thanks to a lucky break.

	"Well, I might be guessing, but I think that was Willow fighting the
Gamesmaster," Iceman answered, jumping down off the junk pile he'd
been standing on.

	"That was not the Gamesmaster," Tucker protested.

	"Yeah," Andrew agreed, "It wasn't even the guy over there that
dressed as him for Halloween and has his powers now too."

	"Looks like he took over that other psychics body somehow," Nemesis
calmly pointed out.

	"That should be impossible!" Warren exclaimed.

	"Didn't look too impossible to me," Iceman countered.

	"You guys do realize that it's that Gamesmaster that set this all up,
right?" Nemesis added.

	"He was the one that brought us together," Tucker began.

	"You guys know what the Gamesmaster's power was, right?" Iceman
interrupted.

	"He was an omnipath," Andrew immediately answered.  "He was a minor
X-Man villain that could control . . . the . . . minds . . . of other
. . . people . . ."

	"And use them as minions," Xander finished for the younger boy.

	Tucker's eyes went wide, as did Warren's with shock, but Andrew was
already in shock over the revelation.

	"NOBODY /CONTROLS/ ME!!" Tucker screamed, his hands sparking a bit,
but nothing on the level it was when he was shooting Force Lightning
at Iceman.

	"He would dare command Doom," Warren's voice changed pitch slightly
and added a European accent, but that was all he did for the moment.

	"Did you want to fight us before you met him?" Black Widow asked.

	Tucker scowled, looking back and forth between his "enemies" and
Gamesmaster who was visible a short distance away.  "Y-you . . .
you're trying to confuse me, confuse us!" he protested.

	"You sure it is us that is trying to confuse you comrade?" Silver
Sable retorted.

	"/Nobody/ can control me," Tucker insisted.

	"Prove it," Iceman countered.

	The Sith Lord hissed in anger, scowling at everyone around him before
finally stilling his features and turning sharply on his heel.  "C'mon
Andrew.  We're going home."

	"O-o-okay," he stuttered, quickly scampering after his older brother.

	"Uh, hey guys, wait up!" Warren squealed and quickly began lumbering
after them as quickly as the armor would allow him.

	"Well . . . that was easier than I expected," Iceman commented.

	An explosion announced the arrival of Buffy and the kid with
Superman's powers, both looking a bit ragged and worn.  Half a second
later, Prime crashed into a crater of his own making, followed by
Captain Marvel following up his attacks.  Before the red and gold clad
superhero could do as much though, he was knocked off track by the
return of the blue and pink energy comet that was Psi-Lord and Willow,
who both crashed into separate mounds of junk after blasting each
other with another round of psionic attacks.

	Another series of explosions, starting at one end of the junkyard and
ending a few meters from the gathering group, went off, resulting in
the appearance of Iczelion facing off against the Kree warrior Captain
MarVell, or rather the boy that had dressed up as him.  Sydney was
breathing a little hard, but did not appear to be injured at all,
whereas the boy, who was actually human-looking instead of
blue-skinned, just with the same red and blue costume and then of
course the Nega-bands, had a few cuts and several bruises already
forming.  He, however, seemed to be in better shape as far as energy
though, and it was also obvious that he was the one that had just
triggered that latest round of explosions.

	Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, a body dropped from space, startling
everyone, even the mind controlled, enough to stop everything.  After
a moment, they all realized that the body was Harmony, heavily injured
with several broken bones and her face nothing but one big bruise and
her breathing ragged even while she was unconscious.  She was still
alive they all noticed, but given her opponent, none of them had
expected her to be anything but.

	Slowly, like the drawing of a curtain on a play that was about to
end, Cordelia Chase floated down from the sky, landing softly on the
side where her friends were gathering, while the others automatically
gathered on the other side of the imaginary line in the sand.

	Buffy, given a brief respite from her opponent, stepped to the lead,
watching out of the corner of her eye as Iceman helped Willow out of
her pile of junk, and the Cordettes helped Prime out of his crater. 
Everyone else gathered behind her, for some reason automatically
deferring to her as leader in this circumstance.  Not that she wanted
to be the Leader or anything, she just wanted to figure out what this
fighting was about, stop it, and then MAYBE sit down and have the
difficult conversation of what to do with a town full of super-powered
and supernatural people.

	Things were so much simpler when it was just demons and vampires, she
realized.

	"You seem to have lost a couple of players Gameboy," she snapped.  "I
think we win."

	"/Think again Slayer,/" came a couple of voices.  One came from the
Gamemaster's actual body, the other from the possessed Psi-Lord. 
"/This game isn't over by a long shot.  Besides, things are just
getting interesting.  I plan to play this game to its conclusion, and
beyond if I can./"

	"Let go of him Gamesmaster," Willow tiredly ordered, being supported
by Iceman, came up beside Buffy.  "You can't keep him prisoner
forever.  And I won't let you pervert his body anymore."

	"/Oh, but thanks to you knocking him unconscious, I can stay a while
yet.  And your own mental defenses are beginning to wane.  It won't be
long before I have a whole new cadre of warriors and pawns to play new
games with.  I don't have to win, don't you see, I just have to wear
you down until I can control each of you and catch you like so many
pieces./"

	"Like hell," Buffy hissed.

	"I'm still fresh, I can take them," Cordelia confided.

	"But not all of them," Iceman countered.

	"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Prime asked tiredly, all of them
watching as the remainder of the Gamesmaster's "pieces" converged on them.

TBC...






Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

Community email addresses:
     Post message: buffywantswillow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
     Subscribe:    buffywantswillow-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
     Unsubscribe:  buffywantswillow-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
     List owner:   buffywantswillow-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shortcut URL to this page:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffywantswillow

Official archive for the list:
     http://www.ikoly.com/fanfic

Other links to Buffy/Willow fics:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffywantswillow/links  
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffywantswillow/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
   buffywantswillow-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
   http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/