3. BtVS 3

Halloween was coming soon, and Carl had a choice to make. Should he try to take advantage of the spell that Ethan Rayne was going to use to turn everyone into their costumes? Should he get everyone dressed in a costume designed to give them more knowledge and powers? Or should he avoid playing with the chaos magic, as there may be some negative repercussions if things went awry.

After thinking about it for some time, Carl decided that the reward to risk ratio was just too tempting. He decided to go ahead and try to use the Halloween spell to get everyone upgraded. Up to now, he's been playing it as safe as he could in this world that sits right next to hell. But the world was inherently unsafe.

And despite the changes he'd already made, and the people he'd added to their group for research and magic support, he was worried that it wouldn't be enough to see them through some of the troubles coming. The future wasn't static, and the big bads might add more enemies to the mix now that they had more people in the group to fight against.

He decided he was going to take a chance on the Halloween spell being more helpful than hindering, and hope for the best.

After some more brain storming, he came up with costumes for everyone. He invited everyone to a little party at the Chase place, and forced Cordelia to go, instead of whatever party she was thinking of going to.

He was able to keep everyone from being forced to escort trick or treaters through careful application of magic to Vice Principle Snyder's head. Just because the prick wasn't the principle didn't mean he wasn't trying to make everyone's lives difficult.

As the guests arrived, he handed out a box with their costume and a little gift to open when he told them they could, but not before. If it went well, the consciousnesses that would possess everyone would see they held a gift box and open it up.

Inside each gift box was a big chocolate shaped like a ghost, to hopefully put them in a nice mood. Who doesn't like chocolate?There was also a paper with a little information brief for each of the individuals that would be possessing his friends that night, so they would know what was going on and how to end the spell early if they so chose.

For Giles, he picked Forge because Carl thought it would be funny to make the almost technophobic man gain powers over technology. And having their research and support man able to offer a wider range of help would be nice.

Jenny got a Zatanna costume because it was so similar to herself, both being magic user. It would likely give a boost to her power and knowledge, which would always be useful.

Joyce Summers was in imminent danger of having a brain tumor, so Carl got her an X-23 costume so the mutant healing ability would keep her healthy. Plus it would give her some insight into what being an actual weapon from a young age was like so she could maybe identify more with her daughter and help her. Carl also planned to reveal the supernatural to her, so she wasn't kept in the dark about the dangers in Sunnydale. This would be one hell of a reveal.

For Buffy he got a Lara Croft costume. She was an older woman, who was very experienced and knowledgeable in her field. He hoped the mature, intelligent perspective could help her handle her calling better. And maybe the wider perspective could help her handle being pressed into service as the Slayer better.

Willow was given a Scarlet Witch costume this Halloween, and not allowed to dress as a ghost. Her powers and knowledge should hopefully temper the redheads desire to outpace her magical studies. And as a redhead, it was just amusing to Carl to have her dressed as the punny Scarlet Witch, which is exactly what she already was.

Xander drew the lucky straw and would dress up as Spiderman. As a fellow Animal Totem chosen one, Xander should get some interesting and useful abilities and perspective from Spiderman.

Carl chose Wonder Woman for his sister, Cordelia. The forthright and bluntly honest personality fit the warrior woman. Some fighting skills and strength would help Cordelia stay safe.

For Harmony Carl chose Carol Danvers. Carl hoped that Carol, as a fellow blonde to Harmony, would gift some of her powers and intelligence. Over the past several months Harmony already proved that she had a certain amount of bravery, having joined the group in action a few times. Most notably when the master was trying to open the Hellmouth. So Carl already knew that Harmony possessed potential to be greater. He hoped that this would be the key to unlock that in her.

Amy would dress as Barbara Gordon. Her intelligence, skills, and sheer awesomeness should help Amy in her life. Having memories of a mentor like the Batman should also put her relationship with her parents into perspective, hopefully. And adding the abilities of Barbara with the magical abilities of Amy would create a very dangerous young woman indeed.

Carl dressed Marcie up as Susan Storm, the invisible girl. Hopefully Susan Storm would give Marcie control over her powers of invisibility and forcefields. And the confidence boost from a personality like Sue Storm couldn't hurt. Even after all this time of being accepted by the group, Carl could tell that Marcie had a part of her inside that believed they would one day forget about her, and she would go back to being the social reject invisible girl. Carl hoped this confidence boost would get her past that wriggling doubt.

Carl chose Iceman Bobby Drake for Jesse semi randomly. He hoped the memories of Iceman's dealings with the wide array of individuals would mature the young man in a hurry. That way Jesse could grow up and stop trying to date his sister, when she had made it clear that not even on a cold day in hell would she date him.

He chose Iron Man for Jonathan, because he'd found that Jonathan had a small gift in the understandings of electronics. He was hoping Stark could boost that gift, and give their support group more tech support.

Andrew got to dress up as Luke Skywalker, just because the goofy nerd was such a huge Star Wars geek. Carl almost picked a Star Trek costume instead, just to tweak him, but he didn't want to deal with an angry pouting Andrew for the rest of all time. If Andrew gained even a fraction of Force Potential, he would be able to help so much more.

Carl was going to dress as Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. He figured he had already chosen to be a mage in this world, so he was going all in. The added knowledge and power would give him more options for dealing with threats.

And finally Carl put in one of his rooms a manikin with the nametag [Dawn "The Key" Summers] dressed up as Illyana Rasputin. He was hoping to get Dawn here early through the chaos of the spell. And Illyana, or Magik as her code name was, was a mutant who had power over portals. Carl hope that the more sympathetic the connections, the greater chance of getting Dawn here early.

Carl had even invited Angel and got him a costume that would have a good chance of turning the souled vampire human. Unfortunately the broody vampire with a soul chose to be anti-social that night, so there wasn't anything Carl could do about it.

When Carl figured the spell was about to go off, he had everyone present pick up their present. The intelligence brief inside would give them a brief idea of what happened to them and how to end the spell. Some generic advice to the characters was given based on the research Carl did into the characters.

The spell washed over the group.

The next thing Carl knew, he was standing over the remnants of a stone bust of Janus. Looking around the room, he saw fifteen individuals in superhero costumes, standing in a daze.

Someone screamed, and Carl twirled around to see what was happening. Harmony was looking at something on the floor, at a corpse.

One of the individuals possessing the group had killed Ethan Rayne.

Carl gulped. He hadn't meant for that to happen. But he guessed that's what happens when 15 powered individuals get pointed at the chaos mage responsible for their predicament.

Carl reached out and hugged Harmony, turning her so she didn't have to look at the body. Two more girls, Amy and Marcie, hugged Carl. Without thinking about it, he raised his sling ring and opened a portal under to body to drop it in the woods outside of town.

When the portal vanished, Carl looked dumbfoundedly at his ring. That worked?

Carl searched his mind, and found the new memories of Stephen Strange. He remembered becoming the foremost brain surgeon in the world and working in the hospital. He remembered Stephen's crash, and the physical damage that stopped him from practicing his craft. Hitting rock bottom when he couldn't find a cure. Searching for and finding Kamar Taj, learning sorcery. Being healed. And his life as the Sorcerer Supreme.

What a wealth of knowledge. Carl was happy it worked.

After everyone organized themselves, and understood what was happening, the group tested out their new powers. Everyone retained only a fraction of the powers of the person they dressed up as. But it was enough to be a game changer.

Marcie's force fields, for example, may have only been the size of a garbage can lid, but they could still block attacks or decapitate vampires.

And best of all, Dawn stood there among the rest of them, as if she had always been there. Carl was secretly gleeful that it worked, and he brought her here early.

After everyone calmed down, and was reassured that they weren't the ones who killed Ethan, they had a little show and tell for Buffy and Dawn's mother. She couldn't very well dispute the existence of the supernatural now that she had two bone spikes that came out of her hands and healed in a matter of minutes.

They broke apart into smaller groups to relax and work on accepting the new abilities and memories they now had.

It was only a week later that Carl found out a huge result of gifting some of the girl's those powers, memories, and confidence, when Amy, Harmony, and Marcie informed him in no uncertain terms that they were all dating him. They were okay with sharing him. And no, he didn't get a say in the matter.

Carl was strangely okay with it. Maybe a bit of Strange's desire to avoid messy human feelings rubbed off on him, because he just found himself happy they didn't make any more of a fuss or drama. And three hot girls agreeing to get along in a fourway relationship with him? Can he get any luckier?

It was only several weeks after that revelation that Carl found out another unexpected result of Halloween. Apparently the Iceman, Bobby Drake, was gay. And now Jesse was too. Jesse had suddenly stopped paying attention to Cordelia altogether. Carl couldn't say he was displeased with the results. And it was pretty funny to Carl when he caught Jesse and Larry eyeing each other in the halls of school. Who knew sexual attraction was the way to overcome bullies?

On another note, Dawn and Willow, after seeing how Amy, Harmony, and Marcie handled themselves, agreed to share Xander between them. Dawn was a bit older here than she would have been in the original universe, so she was only several months younger than Xander and Willow, rather than several years. Carl couldn't say he was displeased that the love was spreading around the group without major drama. A less stressed and more relaxed and happy group was a more effective group.

Joyce didn't exactly have the same reaction of being happy for her daughter being in a three way relationship so young. Until Dawn caught Joyce with Jenny and Rupert. Then Joyce didn't really have any room to back up her reservations concerning Dawn's three way relationship.

Carl was just happy to watch that drama from afar with some popcorn.

"Seriously, what is up with that? This kind of multi-pairing doesn't happen in real life, does it? Is it because of the universe? Kinda like how in the original story Buffy still fell for Angel, even though she was the Vampire Slayer, and he was a Vampire. Is love drama, or sudden unconditional love, or whatever, more prevalent in this universe? Is it in the water?" Carl questioned empty air one day while thinking on it.

Shrugging at not being able to get answers, Carl just got on with life with his three girlfriends. Good thing he was still squirreling money away and making more from killing vampire nests. With his magic, he was able to get away with taking down nests solo. But now he had the girls joining him, now that they had some powers.

Cordelia was swift and absolutely deadly with a sword. Amy was great in combat, with magic being only one of her tools, and she was brilliant at finding out where nests were with her detective skills. Marcie's force fields relieved many a leach of their head. And Harmony had an energy blast that went right through the heart, and poof, no more Vampire. She could also fly as fast as she could run, which she absolutely loved.

Carl noticed that everyone was so much more lighthearted now that they had powers to protect themselves from most dangers. And to think, he almost didn't go through the Halloween plan just because he was afraid something nightmarish might have happened.

Shortly after Halloween, Carl used his portal powers in the middle of the night to purloin a sniper rifle and ammo from the military. He started spending some time each weekend practicing his aim. At the same time he was studying certain rituals, hoping to find what he wanted. If he couldn't find anything, he would have to build it up himself. And that would be time consuming. But it was something he would do if necessary.

Eventually, much to everyone's surprise, Kendra the Vampire Slayer showed up one day in Sunnydale. Giles went to the next room to call the council to verify the information. Carl could hear his cursing from the next room. He could sympathize with Giles. They almost had a slayer on slayer killing on their hands, because the stupid council couldn't share intel. Bloody wankers.

Kendra stuck around for a while, but the threat that she was worried about never manifested. Carl secretly knew it never manifested because he hadn't allowed certain vampires to roam around. But he wasn't going to tell anyone that.

Eventually Kendra got orders from the council to move on and hunt threats elsewhere, and she left Sunnydale. She never really got close to anyone from Sunnydale. She seemed to have really gone through the brainwashing of the council, and didn't even understand the need for a life other than duty.

It was an attitude that Carl could somewhat understand and respect, but he couldn't live that way himself.

He didn't think so highly of the council that raised young girls so brainwashed, though. But unless Kendra herself chose to live a different kind of life, there was really nothing he could do to help her. She was happy, or at least fulfilled, with her life of duty so far.

If that changed, and she needed help getting out from under the council's thumb, he would be happy to help. But until she asked for help, trying to force her to see life differently would just get him labeled as an enemy. And he knew how stubborn Slayers could be.

One weekend everyone got a surprise when Joyce called them all in to take care of a mess. Apparently the Ted robot tried to put the moves on her. In this life, she wasn't fooled into thinking he was human because of her advanced senses she got from X-23 from Halloween.

When Joyce met him, he didn't smell human. She wasn't going to do anything about him at first, because she didn't know what he was. So when the Ted bot tried to ask her on a date, she rejected him. She was already in a relationship anyway. Even if he was human he didn't have a chance.

Upon being rejected, the Ted bot tried to go all overbearing patriarch on her and lecture her into acceding to his dating demands. His attempts to dominate her failed miserably when she put a bone spike through his head when he pissed her off just a little too much. The fact that Joyce knew he wasn't human may have played a part in how violent she allowed herself to get.

The group arrived at the Summers home to find a disabled robot. Jonathan and Giles took the lead, assisted by Willow and Jenny, on investigating and studying the robot.

Looking in Ted's wallet, the group soon arrived at the residence of record, and found some grisly details. Four previous woman, dead from poisoning, all buried in the basement. They also found a server that was the brains of the robot that was in the midst of building itself a new body.

Not willing to allow murderous artificial intelligences to run amok, the technology savvy members of the group locked up the artificial intelligence's freedom, and continued to study it. They had the idea to apply what they learned to some hardware and software patents that the group would be funded by in the future. Buying books, training supplies, and weapons was not exactly inexpensive.

Carl and Cordelia invested in the project, sure that they would make some money from it. A few years later, when they were rolling in the millions, they were happy they made the decision to invest that day. That project alone would have kept them from being destitute when their father lost everything, even if they hadn't been squirreling away as much money as they could get away with.

One full moon the group found a werewolf roaming the town at night. They subdued him and locked him up until the morning, when he changed back.

Carl was impressed at the man's equilibrium. He wakes up naked in a cage, and he doesn't even blink. Just looks at them all and says " 'sup."

"You're a werewolf." Cordelia bluntly told him, seeing no reason to beat around the bush.

"Huh." Oz said. "Okay, then. What do I need to know?"

The man was a rock. A cool, laidback rock.

After getting a change of clothes for Oz, Giles gave him a lecture about the nature of werewolves and what he'd have to do to not be a danger around people.

Oz just thanked them before Carl drove him home. Not much was said, but Oz just sort of drifted into the group from then on, when he wasn't playing in his band. He was a good help, having access to a van and willing to drive some of their car-less members around.

A few weeks later, Carl saw his girls carrying some eggs around. Suddenly remembering from the show that they weren't chicken eggs, Carl called the gang to the library and asked them what was up with the eggs.

After some tests they determined they were Bezoar eggs. It didn't take too long to track down the mama egg, and dispose of it. It was a dirty, messy, corpse. Fire was of course the answer to cleaning up the mess, which Carl happily provided.

The group had a celebration for Buffy's 17th birthday party. Carl could tell she was touched, but she seemed to not be too enthused to be there.

The next day she still seemed frazzled to Carl, but unwilling to talk about what was bothering her. Carl dropped the matter, not wanting to intrude too much.

It wasn't until Willow got a visit from Angelus that the clues clicked into place. Buffy and Angel had slept together and Angel lost his soul.

'After all the hints I gave them, they still screwed it up by screwing each other!' Carl growled to himself.

When the group confronted Buffy, they found that she had been feeling left out because all the other people were in relationships, but she didn't have anyone, and she just couldn't get Angel out of her mind.

Carl just wondered if this was more evidence of a screwed up universe, or if Buffy's feelings were manipulated by the Powers That Be. He had no answers to that, so he could only let it be.

"Buffy. We're here for you. We'll take care of it so you don't have to. No one should have to stake a vampire that wears the face of someone they care for." Carl said while laying a hand on her shoulder in comfort.

Buffy knew it had to be done, but she couldn't be the one to do it. It would tear her apart.

Carl brought his squad of deadly girls with him when he tracked down Angelus. He'd always kept a tracker on the vampire for emergencies. Like if they needed a heavy hitter for something, or if he lost his soul kind of emergency. Carl was glad he had.

They cornered him in an underground crypt and made short work of him. They found three girls' corpses in the crypt with him. All three were petite blondes, which said…something about Angelus.

Making sure they wouldn't be coming back as vampires, they brought the corpses out of the crypt. They would leave the bodies where they could be found by the authorities and buried to give their families closure.

Carl made sure Buffy saw the three corpses that had a resemblance to her. It may have been very harsh, but he thought she deserved the wake up call. She had continued to be romantically involved with a vampire, despite all the warnings and knowledge of what would break Angel's curse. It was only right she saw what the results of her actions were.

Over the past couple of years he felt like the group had all become closer, and he didn't like being cruel to her. It wasn't fun to rub the reality of the consequences of her actions in her face. But she needed to see to believe. He hoped she could survive this.

Only time would tell.

Buffy wasn't coping well by the end of the school year despite everything her friends tried to do for her. She left Sunnydale to stay in L.A. with her father to try to get distance from the issue and gain perspective. Carl hoped she'd come back after the summer in one piece again.

Two weeks after Carl graduated from high school, he was up in the low mountains outside Sunnydale. He just finished setting up his ritual circle. Every element was placed carefully and quadruple checked.

Once he was satisfied that everything was in place and wouldn't be disturbed, Carl sat at his seat at the table. Settling himself into his sitting stance, he looked through the scope. Adjusting the scope, a golf course came into focus in front of his vision.

Calmly controlling his breathing, not letting the nervousness he felt affect his stability, he scanned the course.

Several minutes later he spotted his target.

Carl took a moment to double check the wind speed and direction based on the flags he had discretely placed last week. He made a couple of adjustments.

One last check on the wind.

He steadily breathed in.

He breathed out.

In the pause before breathing in again, he gently squeezed the trigger.

The report, when it came, almost startled him.

Looking through the scope, he saw that his bullet had been accurate. The round had entered through the Mayor's right temple, almost exploding his head as it exited.

With confirmation of the kill, Carl swiftly packed up his rifle, but didn't leave his ritual circle yet.

Moments later, he was proven correct in his assumptions. A massive attack of dark magic was rushing his way. Carl sensed that if that attack hit him, it would take his life and give it to make the Mayor live once more.

Carl didn't panic or run. He calmly sat at the table he had shot the Mayor from, waiting for his ritual circle of protection to do its thing.

What looked like a giant cloud of Evil arrived, flying there from the mayor's position. The cloud swirled around him, trying to envelop him. Screeching, gibbering, and yowling voices came from the cloud. Carl wondered just how many people the mayor had sacrificed to power that retaliatory strike.

His ritual circle was shining brighter and brighter, the harder it fought against the death cloud. Eventually, the standoff is ended. His ritual circle starts sucking in the black cloud, processing the energy, and channeling it into seven large quartz stones.

When the black cloud is gone, the seven quartz stones had turned midnight black, and they felt full of foul energy. Carl swiftly packed them into a special arcane protection case, to keep them from leaking. He broke the circle, and moved away from it.

The last thing he did before leaving via portal was to toss some incendiaries onto the circle. The incendiary burst into flames hot enough to melt metal from the accelerant he'd left. He had purloined the supplies from halfway around the world via his sling ring so that it wouldn't connect to him.

Seeing that the fire was furiously burning all the evidence left behind, Carl closed the portal behind him.

"Well, that went well." Carl sighed in relief. He knew his math on the ritual and the number of crystals needed had been spot on, but it had still been theory vs real life. Real life was rarely as clean as the theory. But everything had worked out properly. And the mayor was no longer a threat.

Packing away his sniper rifle, he took a shower to wash off the smell of gunpowder, and cleaned up his clothes with magic. Then he joined his family for breakfast on their vacation in Hawaii.

After the summer was over, Carl started College while the rest of the gang was starting their senior year. Buffy finally returned just before school started. Everyone had been worrying over her, even if they thought she was an idiot for getting involved with a vampire.

It looked like the time away had done her good. Let her sort her issues out. She was back to being the chipper girl she usually was. She had a story about finding a pocket dimension where time ran differently and demons were using human as slaves there. Buffy killed the demons and saved the humans. They expected nothing else from their slayer.

Carl still spent his afternoons with the magic studies girls, practicing and learning, occasionally building items for defense or attack. Mostly enjoying the time he spent with his friends.

After several weeks, Giles got word that Kendra died when she was trying to solo kill a very old vampire, by the name of Kakistos. Kakistos was so old that his limbs had been twisted to be more demon-like than human.

A couple of days later, Faith and her watcher rolled into town looking like they'd been in a nasty fight. Diana was missing her left arm from the elbow down, and Faith was bruised all over. Considering how quickly Slayers usually heal, she must have been on the edge of death before healing up to where she was at now.

Carl and Cordelia found a decent house with a thresh hold for Faith and Diana to stay at. When Kakistos arrived in town, the whole gang, including Faith and Diana, turned out for the big fight. Carl and the rest of the non-slayers worked on taking out the minions while Buffy backed up Faith in beating the snot out of Kakistos before staking him with a beam, leaving just his skeleton behind.

Even master vampires were not a big competition to Slayers if the vampire didn't have a horde of minions to tire the Slayer out before hand. That thought really made Carl wonder about the stupidity of the watchers council that let the Slayer wander around alone with no backup.

When the fight was obviously going against Kakistos, Carl saw a black vampire by the name of Mr. Trick try to escape by slipping away through the shadows.

"Nuh-uh, you nasty STD. You're not spreading anymore holiday cheer!" Carl yelled out, causing Mr. Trick to pause for a fatal second in shock before Carl's fireball hit the vampire, immolating him. Carl remembered that that particular vampire was quite the annoyance in the show. He wasn't about to let the leach have anymore chances to annoy them.

Another month passed before the gang found out that Angel was back in the world, in the vampire flesh and freshly re-souled.

"Like a worn shoe. Cause you know, they too have souls." Xander riffed when he heard the news, leading to Buffy scowling at him.

Carl was really annoyed at the Powers That Be there to meddle with their lives. They obviously severely bend if not outright break the non-interference policy they were supposed to operate under. And Carl didn't believe their B.S. claims of helping good either.

They support balance, which meant that if good was getting too far ahead, they would slap down the good side to restore the supposed balance.

Which meant that Carl didn't believe for a second they were trustworthy. Especially when they had plans to use his sister Cordelia as a host to birth one of the Powers That Be into the world so they can interfere more overtly and become the ruler of the world.

So yeah, looks like Carl found his next research project.

Out of respect for Buffy, Carl and the gang didn't simply kill Angel when they found out he was back. Angel at least looked sorry for the trouble he caused previously, so that was something. But Carl still couldn't figure out what Angel was still doing in town except making his and Buffy's inevitable separation that much more difficult.

Carl seriously considered staking him again to make it easier for Buffy to get over him. Only the fact that she would never forgive him stayed his hand.

A couple of weeks later, a certain Gwendolyn Post grandly swung into town, trying to railroad the group into being her little gophers in finding the Glove of Myhnegon. She kept badgering them and shifting topics so quick, Carl could see that the group might eventually give in to her demands, if only to shut her up. And they still thought she was a legit watcher here on official business.

But Carl was having none of that. He used his magic to tie her up and shut her up.

"Giles, Diana. Why don't one of you call the council and verify Ms. Post's story."At her panicked look, everyone was more than a bit suspicious of her. "I don't believe one word of her story except that she wants that glove. So let's see if we can't shine a bit of light on this situation before listening to anymore of her badgering b.s."

After a call they found out that she had been kicked out of the Watcher's Council. There was no real crimes in her past that would warrant extreme action for now. And the council didn't care about her as long as she stayed out of their business. So, after politely asking her what her goals were, and telling her that if they agreed they might help, they listened to what she had to say.

Which was more badgering nonsense with nothing substantive, except that they needed to help her find the glove.

So they let her go with a warning to stay away from them.

"Giles, I get the feeling that you need to lock up your resources when you're not here. Maybe even move them to more secure accommodations. Otherwise a certain ex-watcher type might be tempted to develop sticky fingers." Carl mentioned.

"Yes, quite." Giles replied while wiping his glasses. "However, I have installed some quite good technological and magical defenses in the library here. She won't be stealing any of my books, I guarantee you."

"Well, if you're sure, then that's fine."

But they didn't have to worry for long. Ms. Post had been out where she shouldn't have been at night and gotten herself eaten by vampires. It did require them to sit outside her grave a couple nights later to make sure Ms. Post didn't rise again.

Carl realized that with Buffy's 18th birthday approaching, the Watchers Council was ordering Giles to perform the Cruciamentum on her. Carl didn't want to see distrust and betrayal bloom in his group, so he approached Giles with a plan to make the council think he'd followed their orders without actually weakening Buffy.

Once the two had a plan, they laid it out for the rest of the gang.

By this point, Diana, Faith's watcher, was thoroughly disillusioned with the council. They didn't provide funds for housing, medical, or security backup when they were in such a tight spot during Kakistos' attack. She didn't want anything to happen to the two Slayers, especially Faith, that she had been working with for several months. She was enthusiastically on board with the plan.

Using a bit of illusion magic and acting skills, the group was all set to fool the watcher council's observers, when the plans went off the rails. The very dangerous vampire the council brought in for the test slipped its leash and killed the council members. It almost made it to the Summers household where it would have been killed by Joyce or Dawn, before the group caught up and beheaded it swiftly.

Rupert and Diana were able to turn the fiasco into ammunition to use against Travers, the current head of the council. It wasn't enough to get him kicked out of the council head position, but it did alienate him from many of the more progressive members of the council.