Buffy the Vampire Slayer Take Two

Amy is gifted with magic. If she says she might be able to do something, you trust her and go along with it. She sets up a ritual circle, calling upon Hecate to bless and watch over the circle and protect you both. Then she lights a bowl of herbs on fire and starts chanting. You hear her call for Poseidon-

A heavy weight seems to slam into you. It's as if you're under several tons of water. Something is looking at you too, with a gaze that sears as it gazes at you. You reject what you have been given?

Yes, yes you do. Not to be rude, but you didn't sign up for this.

You partook of mine. You should be mine.

You shivered at the ancient anger and want in that voice. This was not someone who was used to being told no. But you hadn't known that you were being given steroids. You were just trying to find out what was happening to the swim team. If you had known what was in the sauna you wouldn't have entered.

The being didn't care. Consent did not matter to it. Knowledge did not matter to it. You had been exposed to its nature and taken in part of it to yourself. You hadn't fully transformed, but your body had accepted part of the ocean as belonging to it. The fact it was not a reaction that should have happened or that most took much heavier exposure to create this opening did not matter. You were under the eyes of the gods, and they wanted you.

You screamed as you felt the weight of the water press down even more heavily on you. Going into this ritual had been a mistake. Amy had opened up a direct path the god could take to get to you. They hadn't been able to claim you before, it hadn't been enough, but this was.

Something shifted, and you felt a new being latch onto you and drag you away from the hungry ocean. It screamed in rage, and you thought you felt something tearing as you came up.

You gasped as you snapped back to yourself in the ritual circle. Amy stared back at you with golden eyes and three fox tails waving behind her. A furry set of ears focused on you and she gave a foxy grin. "Can't let you be stolen like that, Xander." A moment later she passed out. The animal parts didn't vanish. You looked down to find your skin on your forearms gone entirely, leaving you bleeding. You had to act quickly.

[ ]Try to patch things up and take care of Amy alone, there's no time to call for help
[ ]Call for help, it's stable enough and there's no way you can do this alone
[ ]Write-in

Somehow you pull yourself up. Everything hurts, but you force yourself forward and take off your shirt to wrap around one of your bleeding arms. You grab a jacket to take care of the other before making your way out in the hall and to a phone. You call Giles.

"Giles, who is calling?"

"Hey G-man, need some help," you mumble. You're feeling light headed.

"Xander? Where are you?"

"Amy's."

"I'll be right there."

You sit down on the floor and wait. It feels like ages before Giles arrives. He looks terrified to find you with your arms skinned and Amy passed out, but he doesn't ask any questions yet. He just starts patching things up. He looks over Amy noting her very inhuman features. "Xander, I need to know what you were trying to do."

"Amy thought she could ask Poseidon to take away the scales. He really didn't want to let me go."

Giles frowned but nodded at the information. He stepped into the hall and called Ms Calendar to come down and join.

It was a mess to clean up. Ms Calendar, surprisingly, didn't look surprised by Amy's appearance. She was more worried about your arms. You got them fixed up as well as you could, with Ms Calendar adding in a couple charms to help keep it clean and heal well before you were taken to the doctor to get it properly patched. The doctor told you that the section of skin that would heal back would always be slightly more pale than the rest of your skin, and you'd have a faint impression left from the netting they used to help encourage the skin regrowth. At least it could be fixed, and what Amy did worked to the point you no longer had scales.

"So what happened to Amy?" you asked.

"She earned her third tail dragging you back," Ms Calendar said briskly.

"What?"

"She leaned hard enough into her abilities and was desperate enough she earned her third tail long before she should have," Ms Calendar repeated.

"That doesn't explain why she has tails in the first place. Has she always had them?"

Ms Calendar shook her head. "No, she changed after Halloween. She's been slowly shifting into a kitsune since then."

"And I didn't notice." You shook your head in disbelief.

"Kitsunes are masters of illusion," Ms Calendar said calmly.

"Then how did you know?"

"I am her magic teacher. It would be a terrible failure if I hadn't noticed when she stopped being human entirely." Which implied that Ms Calendar also had taken a while to realize. Well at least you weren't the only one caught off guard.

[ ]Ask Amy why she hid what she is
[ ]Thank Amy for trying to help and focus on recovery
[ ]Write-in