FIC: Twin Stars Over Opal City PG-13/Teen Chapter One

[red jacobson]

Title: Two Stars Over Opal City (A Sequel to A Star Over Sunnydale)
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Justice Society of America Crossover
Chapter: 01 - ??
Author: Red Jacobson
Rating: Teen/PG-13 (Nothing worse than the show itself)
Pairings: None
Word Count: <7,586>
Disclaimer: Come on now, if I owned these characters, do you really think I'd be writing fanfic? Joss owns the Buffyverse characters, and DC/Time Warner owns the others.
Distribution: FanFiction.Net, Archive of Our Own, Twisting the Hellmouth,
Feedback: Of course, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, and flames will be used to
roast marshmallows when I have a cookout.
Author's Note: It's been a while, I know, since I did anything with this story, but my muse has been nudging me for a little while to dust off my notes about doings in Sunnydale and Opal City. Also, as you can see by the Rating, you won't find the characters doing the nasty on screen. There may be references to certain characters having 'sweaty snugglebunnies, but I'm not sure; the characters haven't told me that yet.
Summary: The Aftermath of Halloween, 1997 and the rest of the school year.
Author's Note on Beginning of Chapter: The first section of the chapter is an edited and updated version of A Star Over Sunnydale, both to correct errors in the day/dates and to make some adjustments in the final scene to better fit the story my muse is telling me.


Sunnydale High School
Principal Snyder's Office
Wednesday, October 29th, 1997

The mayor's silken voice came over the phone; as always, exquisitely polite, but still, Snyder found himself trembling in fear.

"Now, Romulus, I know that you have decided to ask Miss Summers and her friends to escort the children on their Trick or Treating, and I'm happy to go along with the idea; however, I do have one small addition to your instructions to them."

The mayor paused, and Snyder, although a troll, was not a stupid one, supplied the expected response.

"Of course, Mister Mayor; what would you like me to do?" Hopefully, something that will get all of them killed,' he thought. Unfortunately, his wish was not to be granted, as the Mayor made his desires quite clear.

"When you give them their assignments, tell them that you want them to dress as heroes; maybe say something about how you want them to provide proper role models to the youngsters."

Snyder knew better than to argue with his boss, no matter how much he wanted to, so he agreed as quickly as possible and allowed the Mayor to end the phone call.

As soon as he had calmed down, the Principal of Sunnydale High School hurried from his office to confront his nemesis and her gang of thugs.

The Mayor's Office
Immediately Following

As he hung up the phone, Richard Wilkins the Third (and second, and first); Honorable Mayor of Sunnydale, turned to look at the rather disheveled mage sitting in front of him.

"I appreciate your patience, Mister Rayne, as well as your courtesy in informing me of your plans. I'm going to be just as courteous in telling you that, while I have no problems with a bit of chaos running loose in my town, I don't want it to get out of hand, and that is why I want you to make sure that individuals I named for you receive Heroic costumes, I want them to be able to keep the damage and loss of life to a minimum, do you understand me?"

Ethan paled at the thinly veiled threat but smiled his most ingratiating smile as he assured the mayor that he would have no problem at all going along with the mayor's most reasonable request.

They soon completed their business, and Ethan politely thanked the mayor for his time and left the office, containing his trembling until he was safely outside of City Hall. As soon as he could, he opened his car door and got inside and allowed the fear he had been suppressing to finally surface. After shaking and trembling for several minutes, he shook his head, "Bugger me! I thought Eyghon was some scary shite, but that bloke's got him beat by a mile! Oh well, a deal's a deal; now, what costumes do I have that I can prepare for the festivities?"

Still thinking he drove to the small store he had rented for the week.

Friday, October 31st, 1997
Halloween Night

on his hood and checked to make sure that his cape was hanging properly before knocking on the door to the Summers' house. He smiled as his surrogate mother opened the door and let him inside.

"Well, that's a costume I haven't seen in a few years, Xander," Joyce said, with a smile; "In fact, since Buffy and Willow are in similar costumes, is there a theme for the evening?"

"Not so much a theme as it is following Fuhrer Snyder's instructions. I'm just glad he still had this costume; otherwise, I would have had to go as Johnny Thunder, and trust me, bow-ties are not my style."

Joyce laughed and had to agree. Hearing footsteps from upstairs, she said, "And here are a couple of more members of the Justice Society ready for a night of fighting crime and supporting tooth decay." She finished with a smile.

Xander looked up and smiled at his two closest friends, "Black Canary, Hawkgirl, it's good to see you. Are you ready for our mission?"

Buffy was still unhappy with not being able to dress as the 18th-century noblewoman she originally had planned to dress as, but decided to play along; "Of course, Starman, wouldn't miss it for the world. And I'm sure that Hawkgirl would say the same if she could ever stop blushing," she smirked.

Xander had to agree; Willow's face, what little he could see under her Hawk mask, was flushed as red as her hair. He really didn't see what she was so embarrassed about; sure, the costume was more revealing than her usual clothing, but still conservative, especially compared to Phantom Lady or some of the other heroes out there.

Later that Night

Ted Knight opened his eyes to screams all around him. "What in the world? What happened? I was just walking up to the Brownstone in Gotham City, and now I'm here?"

Shaking his head to clear the fuzziness, he activated his gravity rod and took to the skies. Looking around, he was glad to see another member of the Justice Society flying over the rooftops. Flying over, he asked Doctor Fate if he had any ideas what had happened.

"No, Starman; all I can tell is that whatever Magic drew us here, it's extremely chaotic in nature. We seem to be in California in the year 1997."

"1997? Has Degaton teamed up with a Chaos Mage? He's the only one of our foes that I can think of who likes to muck around with time."

"I'm not certain; I can tell you one other thing I've noticed; however, we got here, we are not in our own bodies; we are possessing other people."

"Then we had better find a way to stop this so that they can go back to their lives. Although from the looks of things down there, I think we'll be busy enough trying to keep these people from killing each other."

"I agree, but there is something that you should know and pass along to the rest of our teammates; there are quite a few vampires out and about tonight, and I'm certain that the residents of this town would not object if they were to meet their ends. I will be tracking the source of the magic that brought us here, but there is a great deal of interference from other realms, so it's difficult to follow."

With those final words, the Lord of Order in human form rose higher into the air and started gesturing.

"I know he says it's magic, and I've seen enough of it to believe him; but Damn! It's hard for the scientist in me to accept that!"

A scream from below was enough to pull him from his musings, and he saw a familiar form fighting against a group of what had to be vampires. Smiling to himself, he dropped down towards the fight, while enjoying watching Dinah move. Even though they were only together that one time, he still remembered her with pleasure. She was so purely physical; she was grace in motion, whether fighting or enjoying more pleasant activities.

"Need a hand, Canary?" He called out; she didn't even look up as she heard him, but smiled and said.

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind one; these mugs don't stay down long enough for me to get my sticks out and dust them!"

Adjusting the controls on the Gravity Rod, he said, "So these are vampires, are they? Well, let's see how they like concentrated Sunlight!" He aimed the rod at the two vampires who seemed to be in charge, a blond male in a leather jacket, and a dark-haired female who was babbling something about the stars as she tried to pull the male away. Two quick blasts with the stellar energy in the rod, and there were two piles of dust on the ground.

Between the two of them, Starman and Black Canary managed to dust the remaining vampires with no problem, and as they were cleaning up, the blond detective said, "I wonder what it is with vamps and their leather jackets and hair gel? There was this one who tried to sneak up on me earlier; of course, he didn't live to regret that mistake, and he was just as full of hair gel as the blond you dusted."

Any comment he was going to make was interrupted, as several other members of the Justice Society came up to them, either flying down, in the case of the Hawk's; running up like the Flash, or, more slowly, like Mister Terrific and Wonder Woman; Hawkman had just opened his mouth to say something; when a wave of magic washed over them; and Xander opened his eyes and saw Jonathon Levinson taking off Hawkman's helmet and looking around in wonder.

He looked around and saw Cordelia Chase in a very interesting-looking Wonder Woman outfit, Larry Blaisdell dressed as the Flash, a redheaded guy who went by the name Oz as Mister Terrific, and Owen Thurman taking off the Golden Helmet of Doctor Fate.

"Okay, I think I can speak for all of us when I say, 'What the hell just happened here?'" Larry said, looking at the others, and seeing awareness on a few of the faces.

Xander spoke, saying, "That's a very long story, and honestly, this isn't the time or the place to go into it." He had more he wanted to say, but then he was distracted by the sound of Buffy sobbing.

Xander rushed over to her, wondering what could have caused the problem, until he remembered the other vampire Black Canary had mentioned dusting.

'Oh crap! She dusted Angel! No wonder she's upset. Okay, Xander, you're her friend, so be her friend! You can do the Snoopy dance later when you get home.'

Wrapping Buffy in his arms, he said, "Why don't you all head on home for the evening? If you want to stop by the library on Monday, we can talk about what happened. If you don't want to know, don't worry about it; this was all just a very strange dream.

The others, except for Willow and Cordelia, turned and left. After quietly explaining to the others, they helped Buffy back home, where Willow volunteered to stay with her for the evening. Xander and Cordelia each left for their homes, having a lot of thinking to do.

Monday, November 3rd, 1997
Sunnydale High School
Library
Before Classes

When Giles arrived at 7 a.m., he was surprised to see that somebody was already in the library. Curious as to who could be in there because almost no other students other than Buffy and her friends had ever used the Library, he edged the door open and was stunned to see Xander standing at the blackboard he had stored in the back, writing what appeared to be complex mathematical equations all over the board.

"Xander? What in the devil is going on?"

The dark-haired youth turned around, and, with a most uncharacteristically serious look on his face, said, "You'd better have a seat, Giles, there's a lot you need to know about what happened Friday night."

Epilogue

It took some time, but Buffy eventually moved on from what had happened, although it was touch-and-go for a while. It finally took Giles, Miss Calendar, he and Willow, as well as, surprisingly, Cordelia, sitting down with her and helping her come to terms with Angel's final death.

Surprisingly, all the others who had dressed up as Justice Society members that night showed up at the library as soon as classes were over on November 3rd. They spent as much time as they could trying to duplicate the powers they had possessed.

Xander kept quiet about so me of the things he remembered, although he did spend a lot of time at his Uncle Rory's, using the workshop in his shed, until, just before school let out for the year, he showed Buffy and Giles what he had been working on: a fully functional Gravity Rod.

The mayor was actually quite pleased at the heroes having kept the chaos to a minimum that night; although he wasn't pleased when he found out that several of the heroes were still active, this caused some plans to be adjusted slightly, but that's another story.

TSOOC & TSOOC & TSOOC

Friday, October 31st​, 1997
Halloween Night
Late Evening

Cordelia's car was a 1997 Lexus sedan, the interior still clean from the most recent detailing, showing no signs of the cheerleader carpools or the lingering smell of too much hairspray. The back seat was half-empty, with Buffy curled into herself pressing against the door, with Willow sitting next to her, hugging the distraught Slayer. Xander was comfortable enough in the passenger seat but sat quietly, lost in thought.

Cordelia was also silent as she drove, which was very unusual for the socialite. Normally, she would be making comments about the events of the evening, but tonight she just seemed thoughtful.

Buffy said nothing the entire way. Her hands were balled so tightly in her lap that her knuckles gleamed white, and her face was drained and hollow. The only sound she made was the occasional stifled inhalation, as though she was forcing herself not to cry in front of the others. Willow, sitting next to her, seemed poised on the edge of speech a dozen times, but never actually started a sentence. She offered her hand at one point, which Buffy took without looking, and the interlacing of their fingers was the only visible comfort in the world just then.

Xander, in the passenger seat, watched the houses go by and wondered if they'd all pass through some invisible barrier and return to the world as it had been before. The night felt like it had been stitched together from the pages of comic books and horror novels, and now, with the costumes removed and the spells broken, they were supposed to slip back into their lives as reluctant high school protagonists. But the memories wouldn't slip.

Cordelia glanced in the rear view mirror, her eyes flicking from Buffy to Willow to Xander and back again. She was silent for the first two minutes, and then, unable to stand the tension, turned the radio on low, seeking some inoffensive pop song to fill the void. Instead, there was only static until she gave up and snapped it off.

They reached Buffy's house. The windows were dark except for the porch light, which cast a pool of forlorn yellow onto the leaf-littered steps. The front door was ajar, but the screen was closed, and an orange plastic pumpkin glowed dimly at the threshold.

Cordelia put the car in park and turned to look at Xander. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me the rest of the way? It's on my way home, and you really don't want to be walking by yourself tonight. Even if the monsters are gone."

Xander gave a half-smirk, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I think the only monsters left are the ones who don't even need a costume to be scary."

Willow helped Buffy out of the car. Buffy was upright, but only through sheer force of Slayer will. Willow held her arm, a miniature bodyguard dressed in most of a Hawkgirl costume, leaving the wings behind in the school library along with the mask. The two made it to the porch, and the screen door creaked open as they reached it.

Joyce Summers was already in the doorway, a bowl of half-melted fun-size Snickers in one hand. She was dressed in jeans and a faded Sunnydale Wildcats sweatshirt, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. The smile on her face faded instantly when she realized that something was wrong.

"My god, what happened?"

Willow took charge, her voice soft but urgent. "Buffy had kind of a bad night. We'll tell you all about it, but this isn't the best location."

"It is a bit brisk, isn't it?" Joyce nodded, moving aside to let the two girls inside and shutting the door. Dropping the candy back in the bowl, her eyes examined Buffy, checking for any injuries, slightly relieved that there weren't any visible. Sitting them on the couch, she went into the kitchen to heat milk for hot chocolate, before gathering the mugs and the drink mix.

She was half listening for sounds from the living room, in case Buffy or Willow needed her, only to frown at the snippets of conversation she picked up, hearing Buffy saying that she was going to tell her mom the truth, otherwise she would never understand. Willow sounded worried, and Joyce heard a word that turned her blood to ice. Willow had mentioned Overton, the name of the private sanitarium that they put Buffy in after burning down the High School Gym at Hemry.

Finishing making the drinks without thinking, her mind going a mile a minute, Joyce brought three mugs of the chocolate drink and gave one to both of the girls and sat down, holding her mug. She waited for a long moment for Buffy to say something, but her daughter stayed silent. Willow looked like she wanted to say something, but Joyce said, "You were going to tell me what happened that upset you, Buffy, but what does tonight have to do with Overton?"

Buffy sat quietly before steeling herself, "It has everything to do with that place, Mom. You didn't believe me when I told you what had happened, so I pretended that I was cured of the delusions by all the medications they forced on me. But they weren't delusions, and Willow and Xander have been with me waiting for a newly turned vampire to climb out of its grave."

Joyce's expression changed from concern to outright worry, and Buffy said, "I know you don't want to believe me, but I can prove at least part of things right now. Do you still have the metal pipes down in the basement? Can you go get one and bring it back up here?"

Once Joyce was convinced that Buffy was the Slayer and that vampires and other uglies existed in the night, it took nearly an hour for Buffy to start describing the events of the night and what had happened to Angel.

By the time the story had been told, all three women had been crying and holding each other, eventually noticing the time, and went to bed, Willow staying with Buffy, naturally.

TSOOC & TSOOC & TSOOC

Cordelia and Xander watched the two girls go into the house, and the door closed behind them, before Cordelia put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. Driving part of the way down the street, she pulled up to the curb and looked seriously at Xander, who hadn't moved to get out of the car. "You know, if you want to talk or whatever, I'm not going to tell anybody."

Xander laughed, but it was a hollow thing. "Thanks, Cordy. That's weirdly nice of you."

"Don't get used to it," she said, but her voice was gentle. "Everybody's allowed one nice thing per year. I've said my quota now."

They sat in silence for a moment, staring at the glowing porch. Then Cordelia put the car in drive, and the two of them cruised toward Xander's neighborhood, where the houses seemed to run more run-down and the porch lights were less likely to be on.

Several houses before Harris's place, Cordelia slowed the car. For a moment, she hesitated, as though she wasn't sure whether she should play this casual or serious. "So…how much do you remember?"

Xander took a long moment before answering. "Most of it, I think. Or at least, it feels like I do. I remember fighting the Nazis—literal, goose-stepping, supervillain Nazis. I remember the taste of New York air in 1942. I remember the smell of the lab, and the way the air gets when you're about to make a breakthrough. I remember what it's like to fly. I remember all of it."

Cordelia nodded. "Me too. And I wasn't even the Wonder Woman that Lynda Carter used to play on TV. I was her mom, Queen Hippolyta. I wore the crown and the armor, and I had a daughter, but it wasn't me, it was some other me, and I remember all of it. And it feels like the memories are just…sitting there, right behind my eyes, like a movie I can rewind."

"Yeah, that's exactly what it's like." Xander looked out the window, then back at her. "I have to wonder if any of the others are going to try and keep their memories, even if they don't want to know any more. Are we just going to forget anything Starman or Wonder Woman or the others knew, just because they were fictional characters?"

Cordelia snorted. "Are you sure that they are fictional? Because it's just something I remembered, but a few years ago, right after my mom died and I wasn't allowed to play with you anymore, I went to LA with my father and his first ex-wife, and we saw Superman and Wonder Woman fighting this guy in a bright yellow costume with a swastika on his chest! I can remember being excited about what I'd seen, and wanted to tell you about it, but by the time we got back to Sunnydale, I'd completely forgotten what I'd seen."

"That's very strange, not really surprising, considering we're living on the Hellmouth, but still strange." He sat, thinking, "Okay, this is a long shot, but would you have a problem taking a drive to Carpinteria or Oxnard tomorrow? I want to go to a library with internet outside of Sunnydale. I'll even buy lunch at Clementine's Steak House."

Cordelia gave him a genuine smile and said, "You just said the magic words, Xander! Since my father's current playmate is a vegetarian, we all must follow a vegetarian diet!"

Wincing sympathetically, Xander shook his head before the two of them made plans for the next day.

She pulled up along the curb, a few houses away from Xander's. "You should be careful," she said. "Weird stuff has a way of sticking to people like us."

"Yeah," Xander said. "I know."

He stepped out of the car, stake in hand, and watched as Cordelia drove away. She slowed up at the stop sign, gave a final wave, and then turned the corner. Xander was on his own.

He took the long way to his house, skirting the pools of shadow and keeping an eye out for any sign of movement. There was nothing—no vampires, no monsters, no demonic aftershocks. Just the occasional flicker of TV light behind a curtain, or the sound of a dog barking at nothing. It felt almost safe.

As he got closer to home, Xander noticed the lights were on, but not in the way that made a house feel warm or lived in. It was the kind of light that seemed to spill out through the windows by accident, as though the people inside had simply forgotten to turn them off. He walked up the steps, passed by the sagging Halloween decorations that had never been taken down, and paused at the door.

He could hear the TV blasting from the living room, the shrill laughter of a sitcom audience track, and, underneath it, the unmistakable sound of his father snoring. He braced himself, turned the knob, and walked inside.

His mother was nowhere to be seen, but his father was sprawled across the couch in a stained undershirt and sweatpants, dead to the world. There were two empty bottles of Old Crow on the coffee table, and the room stank of cigarettes and cheap liquor. Xander tiptoed past, careful not to disturb the snoring, and made his way up the stairs.

TSOOC & TSOOC & TSOOC

Carpinteria Public Library
Saturday, November 1st, 1997
Early Afternoon

The Carpinteria Public Library stood on the corner of Walnut and Fifth, a blocky '70s relic of brown brick and scarred plate glass, flanked on either side by palm trees with more history than the building itself. Xander and Cordelia pulled up just as the janitor was flipping the main lights and beat the opening surge of elderly patrons and harried parents to the computer terminals. The library's entire first floor buzzed with the slow, determined energy of people who had nowhere else to be; Xander felt a kinship but was determined not to join their tribe just yet.

They claimed two terminals by the copy machine, separated only by a dusty reference volume on the Dewey Decimal System. Cordelia, who had never met a librarian she respected, immediately started up her own laptop, a sleek PowerBook that made the library's clunky Dells look like relics from a dead civilization. She logged in, glancing sidelong at Xander as he stared at his terminal, already lost in the blue glow of search engines and digital archives.

Xander's first move was to look for "The Daily Planet." The search felt ridiculous even as he typed it, but the search turned up a website that looked astonishingly real, with datelines and bylines and the sort of embedded ads that would never grace the pages of a fictional paper. The front page bannered a breaking news story about an armored car robbery foiled by Superman, and there were entire verticals dedicated to "Metropolis Events," "Cape Beat," and "Editorials." Xander's heart did a little skip. For a long moment, he sat back, staring at the monitor, half expecting the screen to glitch or the browser to throw up a 404, but the site was all there, as crisp and legitimate as the LA Times.

He clicked into an opinion piece: "Should Superman Intervene in International Affairs?" The author was Lois Lane, the bio listing her as Chief Investigative Correspondent for The Daily Planet. The article was a perfectly constructed editorial, referencing United Nations charters, previous superhero interventions in "non-sovereign" states, and including a sidebar of historical incidents dating back nearly a decade. The comment section was alive, some users arguing that Superman was a necessary deterrent, others labeling him an out-of-control vigilante. Xander scrolled through the comments, searching for any hint that this was a hoax, a viral joke, or a meticulously constructed fan simulation. It was too seamless, too current. There were even banner ads for car dealerships and a pop-up inviting him to subscribe to exclusive content.

He opened a second tab and repeated the process for "Gotham Gazette." Again, the site was real—dour, gray, and written in the kind of hard-nosed prose that made most city papers seem punchless by comparison. There were references to "The Batman" in the current news cycle, with stories about arms busts, organized crime, and a mayoral campaign that was being dogged by allegations of Joker involvement. Xander found a police blotter with a PDF attachment listing "Unidentified Caped Individual" as a person of interest in half a dozen incidents. There were embedded photos, most of them blurry, but a few clear enough to see the outline of the Bat symbol.

He looked over at Cordelia, who was already typing at a ferocious clip, her face set in a mask of concentration. He decided, on a whim, to search for "Wonder Woman" in the LA Times's digital archives, filtering for the period Cordelia had mentioned, the summer after sixth grade. It took a few tries to refine the dates, but then he found it: a Sunday edition, front page above the fold, with a photograph of Superman and Wonder Woman in mid-air, bracing off against a figure in a bright yellow costume and black boots. The headline read "Superheroes Descend on Los Angeles in Unprecedented Showdown." The villain was identified as "Captain Nazi." There was a full color spread on page 5, and a sidebar on the mysterious disappearance of dozens of high-profile LA neo-Nazis in the days following the event.

He felt his mouth dry. The article about Superman and Wonder Woman was not just a one-off. He did an image search of both heroes, then cross-referenced them to news outlets in Europe, South America, and even Japan. They popped up everywhere—the "Cape Beat" in Paris, the "Costumed Vigilante" stories in São Paulo, the ongoing debate in the UK Parliament about "meta-human" rights. There were literally thousands of articles, stretching back decades, all documented like regular events in the world.

Getting Cordelia's attention was harder than expected; her focus was absolute, but when he nudged her shoulder, she snapped out of her trance. When he slid his monitor over, she stared at the LA Times article with an expression somewhere between horror and awe. "That's them," she said, tracing a finger under the headline. "No doubt about it. But why would I forget something like this?"

"That's the million-dollar question," Xander said, "or more like, the existential brain-melter. Why is it that nobody in Sunnydale, or maybe anywhere else, seems to realize that costumed super-people are just…out there? And what about Coast City getting nuked a few years ago? Shouldn't that have been, I don't know, a bigger topic at school?"

Cordelia frowned, her lips drawn tight. "It's like there's a filter on the whole town. Not just regular not-talking-about-it, but deep, military-grade amnesia. Nobody ever mentions capes; nobody even gossips about it when there are literally flying people on the news. I mean, even the death of Princess Diana couldn't get this level of blackout."

"I'm inclined to think there is an intelligence behind the whole town's blindness," Cordelia said, voice low and sharp. "It's too thorough to be random Hellmouth interruptions, and way too targeted. Somebody—or something—wants Sunnydale to stay stupid about this stuff."

"Which means," Xander said, "we need to be really careful about who we talk to, or even where we talk about it. Like, I bet if we walk into the Magic Box or the school library and start talking about Superman, everyone's going to look at us like we're on drugs. Maybe even forget the conversation the next day."

Cordelia nodded. "We'll need to warn the others. But not in Sunnydale. Maybe have a meeting out here, far enough away from the Hellmouth that we can actually say the word 'metahuman' without getting a nosebleed."

Xander looked down at his notebook, where he'd been scribbling keywords and email addresses. "Going to sound paranoid, but maybe we should make a hard copy of everything we find. Use the library copier, stash it somewhere safe. If this thing is really erasing memories, we could be the next ones to forget."

"It's not paranoia if it's true," Cordelia said, flipping her legal pad toward him. "Look at this."

She'd already compiled an entire page of contact information. At the top was THEMYSCIRAN EMBASSY, with a Washington, DC area code, an email, and even a FAX number. Below was Ted Knight, listed as "Opal City Observatory, direct line." Next came the Justice League of America, with a press contact at something called the "Watchtower"—and a note, in Cordy's sharp all-caps, "ASK FOR BLACK CANARY OR ORACLE." There were more: Midway City Museum, curators Carter and Shiera Hall; Terry Sloane, with a recent obituary from the Wall Street Journal; Jay Garrick, listed as "Professor, Keystone City College"; Kent Nelson, Professor of Archaeology at Miskatonic University.

Xander blinked. "Is this all legit? You just pulled it off the internet?"

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "You'd be surprised what people put on their LinkedIn. And, yes, most of these are filtered through public-facing channels, but it's all real. Which means there's a network here. If you know where to look, you could probably just…call Wonder Woman."

Xander shivered, the information giving him a surreal, dislocated feeling. "This is…way beyond strange," he said. "And maybe I'm being even more paranoid, but you should definitely make two copies of this. Put them in two different places. Maybe a safe deposit box, in case this memory zapping thing kicks in again."

Cordelia smirked, holding up a brass key with a blue tag. "Already thought of that. My father's Montecito branch has a box, and I keep one of the keys. We can stash whatever we find there, and if we forget why it's important, hopefully we'll remember to check the box."

"Smart," Xander said. He stared at the computer screen, then at Cordelia's notes, the weight of the situation settling over him like a lead apron. "Do you think we should try contacting any of these people? Like, what if we sent an email to the Themysciran Embassy, or called the Midway Museum? Would they even answer?"

Cordelia considered it for a moment. "I don't know. But if this thing is real—if there's a whole world out there that remembers the superheroes, and only Sunnydale is in the dark—then someone should warn them. Or maybe ask for help?"

Xander nodded. "Let's copy everything we can and then head to the bank. After we eat, we can figure out who to contact and how to reach them. Sound good?"

TSOOC & TSOOC & TSOOC

Sunnydale Library,
Monday, November 3rd​, 1997
After the last Class

Xander and Cordelia arrived at the library a full five minutes ahead of the agreed-upon time. The air outside was thick with the weight of a pre-storm, the sky bruised purple and green, as if the Hellmouth itself resented the Monday. Xander held a manila folder like it was a file of secret government documents; Cordelia wore the hard mask of someone who was prepared to be disappointed by the world again but was still willing to play along, just in case.

The library was deserted save for Giles, who was hunched behind the counter, squinting at something in a battered edition of The Aeneid. The air smelled of wood polish, recycled paper, and the faintest hint of sulfur. Xander fidgeted, trying to remember whether Giles's moods trended toward fire or ice when surprised by student presence after hours.

He and Cordelia settled at the large reading table, and Xander opened his folder with a dramatic flourish that would have been more impressive if the contents hadn't immediately scattered across the polished surface.

Cordelia rolled her eyes but helped divvy them up—a sheet for each seat at the table. The pages were typed and double-spaced to be easily read. The first line beneath was in bold: "If you are reading this, you already know that things are very different than you might believe. We will explain everything we can, but be aware, there are things it is not safe to talk about, and we will explain that as well, but not here."

Buffy and Willow arrived in a gust of conversation. Buffy's hair was still a little damp from the post-gym locker room, and Willow's cheeks were flushed with either excitement or terror, or both. Buffy scanned the table, looking for some sign of what this was about. Xander gestured her over with a little flick of his wrist. She glanced at the papers, picked one up, and started reading.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the flutter of a dropped page and the distant hum of someone vacuuming on the other side of the school. Buffy's brow furrowed as she read, her lips moving as if she were sounding out the words in her head. When she reached the end, she looked up, caught Xander's gaze, and he saw in her eyes not confusion or disbelief, but a dark, brittle resolve like something had finally clicked.

She slid the page across the table to Willow, who read it with wide eyes and immediately started to speak. "Oh my god, Xander, are you sure you should—" was as far as she got before Buffy covered her mouth with a Slayer-quick hand. Willow's voice, muffled, became a frantic series of consonants, but Buffy just shook her head, hard, and gave her a look that said "not now, not here."

Cordelia cocked an eyebrow, looked at Xander, and then at Buffy. "Well. At least we're all on the same page. Or several pages." She leaned back in her chair, the picture of forced composure, but Xander could see the tremor in her hands as she folded them together on the table.

It took another few minutes for the others to trickle in. Oz arrived next, slipping in so quietly that nobody noticed him until he was standing at the end of the table, his arms crossed over a Ramones t-shirt and his eyes scanning the room with predatory calm. He nodded at Willow, who blushed, and then at Buffy, who nodded back. He didn't need a copy of the handout; he clearly already understood.

Then came the rest: Jonathan Levinson, his backpack stuffed so full it looked like a turtle shell, and Owen Thurman, who looked like he'd tried—and failed—to pass himself off as a normal student by wearing a letterman jacket over his usual black turtleneck. Larry Blaisdell, star athlete and low-key bully, arrived last, wearing a look of wary amusement, and took a seat at the table.

Giles looked up at the sudden influx of students, first with annoyance, then with something that might have been alarm. "Is there a meeting I was not informed of?" he asked, his accent sharpened by genuine surprise.
Buffy was already moving toward the counter. She leaned in, her voice low but intense, and the others could only hear the occasional fragment—"…can't keep lying…" "…doesn't make it go away…" "…they have to know…"—but Giles was clearly not happy about whatever she was saying. His face changed colors, from pale to pink to an alarming shade of red, and at one point, he thumped his fist so hard on the counter that the copy of The Aeneid slid out of frame.

At the table, Xander tried to ignore the drama at the counter. He started distributing the remaining pages, making sure each newcomer had a copy. "Take a look at this. Read it all the way through," he said, trying for a tone of authority and mostly achieving it, but Larry just snorted and made a big show of skimming the first page before tossing it back onto the table.

"Is this a joke?" Larry asked, but there was a hint of real fear under the bravado.

Xander shook his head. "No joke. I wish it were." He turned to Jonathan, who had already read the sheet and was now staring at the table as if the grain of the wood might offer an answer. "You remember what you were on Halloween?"

Jonathan nodded, lips pressed so tightly they were white. "Yeah. I remember everything. The wings, the voice, the mace. It was…real, wasn't it?" He glanced at Owen, who hadn't spoken yet, but whose hands were trembling under the table.

Cordelia interjected, her voice oddly gentle. "We're not the only ones. And it's not going away. So if you're here, it means you're part of this, whether you want to be or not."

Buffy returned, her face set in lines of exhaustion and something like relief. She sat down heavily, pulled her copy of the paper in front of her, and looked around the table. "We're all in this together," she said. "That's why we're here."

The conversation that followed would have sounded insane to anyone else, but to those in the room, it was oddly comforting. Each of the former Justice Society members discussed what they remembered—the way the world had felt bigger, brighter, more dangerous; the memories that seemed implanted but were also as real as anything else; how the effects, though dulled, hadn't entirely worn off.

Oz surprised everyone by speaking first. "We've talked about what happened to us, but so far I haven't heard anything that might explain what caused it, and can we be sure it won't happen again?"

Giles moved closer to the table and said, "It was caused by a chaos worshipper who performed a ritual to cause everyone who got a costume at his shop to become the actual hero they were dressed as. I was able to interrupt the ritual, returning everyone to their true selves, but the magician slipped away while I was trying to discover just how widespread the effects of the ritual were. I was very emphatic when I expressed my opposition to the arsehole performing any sort of ritual in this town. I'm confident that the same thing won't happen again."

Willow, finally allowed to speak, launched into an impromptu theory about metaphysical contamination, quantum resonance, and the possibility of a new evolutionary leap in human consciousness. She was halfway through a tangent about Jungian archetypes when Giles, who had been listening from the sidelines, finally interrupted.

"Ahem," he said, and the room fell silent. "If I might interject, I believe it is of the utmost importance that we do not allow ourselves to be swept away by, ah, hysteria or, for that matter, delusions of grandeur. What happened on Halloween was an anomaly, yes, but there are…forces at work that we cannot begin to understand. Prudence, therefore, is advisable."

Buffy gave him a look that bordered on mutiny. "Prudence won't help us if the next monster isn't something I can punch. We have to be ready for anything."

Jonathan, voice wavering but clear, said, "What if something happens and instead of having heroic personalities, we turn into Darth Vader and his stormtroopers?"

Nobody had an answer for that.

After a long silence, Larry, who had been sulking at the far end of the table, suddenly leaned forward and said, "Look, I'm not saying I buy all this, but if something weird happens again, I want to be ready. I'm not going to let some freak show get the jump on me." He thumped his chest for emphasis, then looked away, embarrassed.

Cordelia, with a rare smile, said, "That's the spirit, Larry. And if you're offering, you can help me develop a fitness plan. If we're going to be superheroes, we can't all be bench-warmers."

Willow looked less than thrilled at the prospect of physical exertion, but when Buffy gave her a supportive smile, she nodded anyway. "Okay. For science. And safety." She tried to make it sound like a joke, but it landed somewhere between terror and resignation.

Xander, emboldened, said, "I think we should have a meeting spot that's not at school, where we can talk without being overheard." He glanced at Cordelia, who tossed her hair and said, "The Carpinteria Botanical Gardens. My parents are on some kind of sustainability kick, so I end up there every other Saturday anyway. It's private, and nobody from Sunnydale High goes there unless they have to."

Everyone seemed to agree that it was a good idea, and with a surprising lack of further drama, they set the time for the following Saturday and broke up, going their separate ways, all of them with a great deal to think about.

End Chapter One