12Disclaimer: refer first chapter.
A/N: Short one here, done mainly for the gratuitous cliffhanger. But don't worry, the next one's already good to go…
The Usual Suspects?
Chapter Two: Borrowing Willow to Pay Buffy
—ox-oxo-xo—
"Look, do you wanna know what happened or what?"
Whistler's yell brought the two of them down to earth. Buffy put him down and Willow stopped glowing.
"Right." Whistler straightened his clothing as he explained. "Twinned bodies don't just come out of nowhere, ladies. The essence can stretch and even copy just fine – but adding energy-to-matter conversions, that throws everything outta whack! That's why the Ferula Gemina works like it does – to manage the split so at least the weaknesses are what the user wants them to be. It has to, to compensate for the energy loss."
Buffy looked over at Willow. The redhead was nodding thoughtfully.
"Now, you two have both been around the block enough to know; fixing up a dead body, bringing it back to life? Actually pretty easy, so long as you got all the bits. Tracking down the soul from the afterlife and shoving it back in, that's where it gets nasty. But that's no problem here! Because we just split you off and move you into one of the healed but empty bodies. A quick memory-wipe of the brains, and we can just copy your memories onto the old grey matter."
"I think that makes sense," Willow commented, "but where are the bodies from? I mean, Buffy's young! And I'm… younger?"
"Multiverse theory, remember? Your new bodies are from an alternate realm where they died and the bodies mysteriously went missing." He smirked and air-quoted as he said 'mysteriously'. He lost the smirk when he saw their faces harden. "Hey, they died anyway! That Buffy died in the Master's cave, and that Willow died on Kingman's Bluff nearly two years ago! All I did was borrow the bodies for this!"
The women – younger women, now – relaxed a little. Buffy had to concede, she was all for not having a hole in her torso anymore.
"Oh, and just to be clear: nothing mystical carries over from the old owners – well, nothing except the Slayer spirit if it's there when they died, I can copy that. So no problems there either. Okay?"
"…Okay," Buffy replied. That sounded better than she'd been expecting.
Willow, on the other hand, was looking thoughtful again. Then she started smirking. "So, these bodies are from an alternate realm. That means, there are alternate realms you can get bodies from."
Whistler smiled. "You got it, Ginge…"
Willow scowled momentarily at the nickname, then went back to smirking. "So… can we recruit from alternate dimensions? With the same conditions?"
The balance demon grinned widely. "Yes, yes you can! And in fact, that just earned you your first mission boon!"
"Really, that's great!" Buffy turned to Willow, her sarcastic grin fading to deadpan. "Willow, what's a boon?"
"It's a favour – a minor miracle, from the Powers to you," Whistler answered instead. "Or a major miracle, depending what how big the boon is. Actually, for this one I'll give you an example – because I just know at least one you'll wanna pick, you just won't be able to help yourself.
"Now, you can ask for your vampy friends. And before you start worrying about sunlight: any of them you ask for, they get converted to human bodies and their souls bound till they move on like any other human. The boon you just got is: now they'll get to keep the vampiric strength and healing, without being vampires." He grinned. "How's that for a boon?"
Buffy listened, her eyes getting wider and wider as a disbelieving grin spread across her own face.
—ox-oxo-xo—
Angel and Spike's additions were far less grisly than Willow's. Two small piles of dust billowed out and swirled into their old shapes, which condensed to their vampiric forms. The bodies flashed with a coruscade of dazzling colours, only to darken with a healthy flush of life as the light-show faded. As with Willow (and presumably Buffy), the last thing that happened before they opened their eyes was for the pair of ex-undead to be levitated so that they were standing upright.
They also stumbled, but recovered with vampiric grace.
Spike looked around curiously as Angel reflexively cowered from the sunlight before straightening and trying to pretend he had done no such thing. The smirking bleach-blond looked over at the taller brunet, tilting his head to indicate Buffy.
"See?" Spike told Angel. "I told you she'd be fine. You an' your whinging over the translation – like something as tacky as that little bauble was gonna bring her down…"
Buffy, Willow and Angel stared at him with increasing bewilderment.
"Wot?"
Ending A/N: Ah, Cliffie, how I've missed you and your notes. Mwahahahahaaah…!
…Ahem. Next!