The Beginning

Title: The Other
Author: JoeHundredaire (joehundredaire@tthfanfic.org)
Rating: R/FR18.
Pairings: Xander Harris/TBA
Disclaimer: Marvel owns the entire Spider-Man mythos, and all related characters. Never quite figured out who owns the Buffyverse, but I know for a fact that it's not me...
Summary: Xander probably should have looked closer at the costume he bought…
Joe's Note: Because you're not really a crackfic author until you've done the obligatory Xander YAHF… what the hell. I just want to put a few things out there before we begin, though. While I have nothing against Willow, this is an anti-Willow story mainly because her and Xander's degrading friendship drives the plot forward at a few key points. Secondly, while there will be no Xander/guy from BtVS/AtS action resulting from his magical genderbender… I won't rule it out for other characters. While exploring She-Xander's sexuality might be fun to do, I really can't see any of the characters from the show going "Hey, I like girls so even though I knew you back when you had a penis, can I introduce you to mine?"


Dramatis Personæ:
Sunnydale:
Alexander 'Xander' Harris aka Callista McKinney (Homo sapiens novus female)
Cordelia Chase (Homo sapiens novus female)
Buffy Summers (Homo sapiens sapiens female)
Willow Rosenberg (Homo sapiens sapiens female)
Rupert Giles (Homo sapiens sapiens male)
Harmony Kendall (Homo sapiens sapiens female)
The Justice League:
J'onn J'onzz aka John Jones (Ma'aleca'andran)
D'awnn J'onzz aka Dawn Jones (Ma'aleca'andran)
Oliver Queen, Green Arrow (Homo sapiens sapiens male)
Chloe Sullivan, Watchtower (Homo sapiens novus female)
Dinah Lance, Black Canary (Homo sapiens novus female)
Kendra Saunders, Zauriel (Homo sapiens sapiens female)
Kal-El aka Clark Kent, Superman (Kryptonian male)
Kara Zor-El, Superwoman (Kryptonian female)
Bruce Wayne, Batman (Homo sapiens sapiens male)
Kate Kane, Batgirl (Homo sapiens sapiens female)
Hal Jordan, Green Lantern (Homo sapiens sapiens male)
Carol Ferris, Star Sapphire (Homo sapiens sapiens female)


     Xander groaned in combined nerdgasm and frustration as he looked at the costume in front of him. He had come here looking for a gun to combine with the Army fatigues and dogtags he'd picked up from the local surplus store to make a Halloween costume out of… but the stuff here was so awesome! Forget that dress Buffy was drooling over, the owner of the store had awesome Marvel character costumes. Ridiculously detailed, almost movie-worthy costumes! Definitely drool-worthy, if you were a comic fan of any seriousness.

     Fingering the red and blue costume on the hanger in front of him, Xander sighed. How cool would it be to go as Spider-Man but not? The classic red and blue Spidey costume was what came to mind whenever most people thought of the iconic hero, but this was the revised version that his clone Ben Reilly had worn when he was Spider-Man for a while. Xander had never even seen that costume before in the real world, even with all the comic conventions he'd been to, much less seen a version of it available for rent.

     The two girls were already leaving without him, chattering excitedly as Buffy carried her new dress out of the store. Xander sighed. What did she see in Angel anyways? Well, he assumed that Captain Forehead was the inspiration behind her whole obsession with the noblewoman costume. But seriously. Guy couldn't even go to the beach… or the park… or most sporting events… or take Buffy shopping, which he knew was very important to her. Granted… he couldn't take her shopping either, due to an acute lack of cash, but he could do the rest of it!

     Looking at the price tag on the outfit, Xander considered his finances for a moment. While the purchase price was far outside the amount of money he had set aside for his costume, the rental fee was just barely within the amount he had total. Granted he wouldn't be eating Twinkies or buying comics for a while, but he could have this kick-ass costume for the night… and maybe even impress Buffy. Or, given the fact she felt the need to defend him from bullies? Maybe she'd at least realize he was a guy.

     Taking the hanger down off the rack, Xander marched to the front of the store. The older gentleman at the counter looked up from a piece of paperwork as he approached. "Ah, greetings young sir." An English accent? That was a bit unusual, especially for a town as… well, Sunnydale wasn't small, but it did have a very unified, middle-class white population. There were a few exceptions, like Cordelia and her clique and then lower-middle class people like his parents, but Brits? Before now, he'd have bet his comic collection that Giles was the one and only. "I see you've found a…" The man trailed off as he stared at the costume in Xander's hand. "I say, there's something you should know about that costume…"

     "What is it?" Xander frowned and looked down at the red and blue outfit. He couldn't see anything physically wrong with it, like a stain or tear. Wait a minute… "Did somebody die while wearing this or something? Because unless someone did, I don't care. And if that is the case… well, maybe we should negotiate on price. But this costume is pretty much my only chance of impressing Buffy tonight and I'm not going to pass it up." He wanted that costume, damnit!

     That made the man raise an eyebrow. "Are you talking about that nice young girl I just sold the noblewoman's dress to, perchance?" Xander nodded and he looked back and forth between Xander and the costume a few times before grinning widely. "My mistake, I was thinking of one of the other Spider-Man costumes I have in stock. I do have a number, as I'm sure you saw. Although, given how eager I am to see that particular costume out on the street tonight… I believe I'll offer you a discount. How does one-third off sound?"

     Xander blinked. With that, he'd at least be able to afford a box of Twinkies for the week on top of the costume he wanted. But since he firmly believed that comics actually did teach you most of what you needed to know in life… there had to be a catch. Nothing good ever came without a catch. "That's awful nice of you, but why are you willing to do something like that for me? I mean, this is an amazing costume. You could probably get twice what you're asking for it, and you're willing to give me a discount?"

     "My job is to help each person find the costume that's just right for them." The Englishman - who, given that he was the only person in the store, Xander suspected might be the Ethan behind the name - grinned widely. "And I was young, poor, and in love once. I see in you… a kindred spirit of sorts. So I'll offer you a discount. Unless you wish to continue to object?"

     In love? Was he actually in love with Buffy? In like with her, yes. In lust with her, most definitely. But in love? Could you love someone who couldn't see past the caveman brow of her vampire paramour to realize you could possibly be the one for her? And he wasn't quite sure he wanted to be considered a 'kindred spirit' to a middle-aged Englishman who ran a costume shop in East Buttfuck, California, although Xander couldn't deny that the discount would help alleviate what would otherwise be a really big… like, meteor strike big… dent in his wallet.

     When push came to shove, though, there was only one real way the situation could possibly play out. "I'll take it!"


     Xander pouted… wait, no, guys didn't pout. He was… frowning with a moderate amount of unhappiness at the situation. Yeah, that's what he was doing. He frowned with moderate unhappiness as he stared at himself at the mirror. A bit too late, he realized that maybe he should have tried the costume on before he rented it for the night.

     It wasn't a horrible fit, but for a rather tight outfit, being even a little bit off was noticeable. He was pretty sure that the costume was for someone two or three inches shorter, although thankfully the outfit didn't gap in the middle and show off his pasty white stomach or anything. And from the way it hung a bit loose around his chest and hips, it was probably meant for someone with more muscles than he'd ever possessed in his life. A lot more in the chest's case. The actor or stunt man this had been intended for must have had killer pecs, Xander mused.

     Looking over at the clock, he realized that he would have to move pretty fast to get to the school on time to pick up the kids with Buffy and Willow. Grabbing the two metal gauntlets off his bed, Xander slid his arms into them as he hustled down the stairs. Too bad they didn't work. Web-slinging… actually, there weren't any buildings in Sunnydale tall enough to really web-sling from, so that wouldn't help him with his potential late arrival.

     Bursting out the front door, Xander ran.


     "Buffy! Lady of Buffdom, Duchess of Buffonia, I am in awe! I completely renounce spandex!" Xander paused before looking down at his own outfit and giving her a sheepish grin. "Okay, so maybe not completely renouncing at the moment…"

     Buffy gave him an awkward-looking little curtsy. "Thank you, kind sir. But wait until you see…" She turned toward the staircase and Xander's gaze followed, only to find Willow standing at the top of the stairs wearing the same ghost costume as the year before. "…Casper."

     "Boo."

     Grimacing, Xander wondered what she was actually wearing under the sheet. Something interesting, no doubt, if the redhead had caved in at the last second the way Buffy's tone seemed to indicate. "Hey, Will! That's a fine boo you got there."

     There were a few long moments of discomfort and then Buffy hustled them out of the house and toward the school. She'd offered up a few comments regarding Willow's costume, but hadn't even acknowledged his. Xander sighed. Well, his attempt to catch her eye, or even just seem the tiniest bit manly in her mind, had been a resounding failure.

     Xander eyed Buffy from behind as they walked. Actually? He'd just been trying to suck up to her. The costume wasn't really that great, or that flattering on her. It wasn't a particularly stately dress to begin with; closer, in his opinion, to a bad Disney version of an old-fashioned dress than to something a real noblewoman would wear. And on top of that, she was fairly short and when you took a short girl and added a puffy skirt… it made her look kinda round and chubby. Which was a significant achievement, given how skinny Buffy actually was.

     Pondering the dark head of hair in front of him, Xander realized that it was probably pretty close to Buffy's real hair color if her roots were anything to go by… and that she looked prettier that way. But did he dare actually say that to her?

     …yeah, he'd do that right after he told Angel 'bite me'.

     When they arrived at the school, Xander was both amazed and appalled at the costumes his peers had chosen. Amazed at the creativity of a few… and likewise appalled at how clichéd and boring most of the costumes were. Not that being a superhero was that original, but at least he had an unusual superhero costume damnit.

     The Cordettes were Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Larry was a pirate. He had some top heavy, gum-snapping bimbo dressed as a pirate wench clinging to his arm. There was a bad, Dracula-esque vampire, some nerds in assorted sci-fi costumes… and given he was dressed as Spider-Man's relatively unknown clone, Xander realized he probably shouldn't throw stones about the level of geekdom that anyone else possessed.

     Cordelia, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. He wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to be… some kind of earth spirit or faerie or something. She had either made or bought a wig that gave her the appearance of having a tangle of thick green vines for hair, and her skin was a pale shade of green that actually looked closer to Willow's pale countenance than the cheerleader's normal tan. And the killer was her outfit… what looked like a one-piece bathing suit and stockings, all made from sewn-together leaves. It covered a surprising amount and actually managed to come off as classy, rather than skanky.

     Huh. Xander shook his head. He was checking out Cordelia Chase and only pleasant things were popping into his mind? That had to be a sign of the apocalypse. Either that, or maybe he was finally growing up a bit and growing past their childish rivalry to realize she was attractive, even if not entirely pleasant? Shaking his head again to clear it of his odd thoughts, he focused his attention on what Snyder was saying about the night's events.


     As Xander's mind surged back into control of his body, he became aware of a few things that were more than a little alarming to him.

     One: He was hanging upside-down from the rafters of a warehouse, watching Buffy beat the crap out of Spike. The Buffy beating up Spike part wasn't at all alarming; good riddance to the bleached blunder if Buffy managed to stake him. Hooray for vampire slayers who decided to slay rather than lay the undead. No, it was the upside-down part that was weird.

     Two: His brain was full of things that shouldn't have been there. Memories of a complete second life in a New York high school, with another group of friends he shouldn't have recognized. Memories of sneaking away from them to put on a costume and fight various supervillains. That… was also weird.

     Three: His body felt… off. That too was weird, but he couldn't figure out why because he wasn't quite sure what was wrong with his body apart from the fact that it wasn't quite right.

     Looking… huh, having to look up to see his feet was strange, but he put that out of his mind as he stared at where his feet were sticking to a steel girder. That was new. Removing his hands from the beam, Xander straightened up so he was standing while hanging from the ceiling. Looking his body over, he noticed something else. Something that he probably would have noticed right away if the whole hanging-from-the-ceiling thing hadn't caught his attention first. Were those..?

     Xander's eyes rolled up into his head and he distantly felt himself dropping through the air as he passed out.


     As Xander clawed his way back to consciousness, he opened his eyes a crack and then slammed them shut again at the bright light. His head was throbbing and he barely managed to stifle a groan, not quite sure where he was.

     Two very familiar voices drifted over to him, but the odd conversation kept him from announcing his return to the land of the living. "What are we going to call Xander now that he's a girl?" What the hell was Buffy smoking to be asking something like that? Why would she and Willow even be discussing something so ridiculous? After a moment, Buffy answered her own question. "I think we should call him… err, her Joan."

     There was another pause. "Joan?" Willow didn't sound too keen on that idea. "Why Joan?"

     "What's wrong with Joan?" Buffy let out an indignant huff. "I've always liked that name. I think it's pretty."

     Willow let out a thoughtful noise and Xander felt a hand brushing hair away from his face… and there was a good deal more hair than there should be. He managed to keep from reacting to the contact, not willing to open his eyes and confront the terrible truth his friends were so casually discussing. "I guess, but I think she's more of a Tara."

     Letting out a snort, Buffy hopped up on whatever Xander was laying on. "Tara? You've gotta be kidding me. How is she a Tara?"

     "If I open my eyes and see what the rest of you are seeing, I'm thinking I might be more of a Mayday Parker." Xander shifted a bit on the uncomfortable surface, taking a deep breath to steel himself. Opening his eyes, he stared up at Buffy and Willow before tilting his head down. Yep. He had two fairly sizable masses on his chest, filling out the formerly loose costume. "Well shit."

     Willow threw herself on top of him and squeezed Xander tightly. "Oh my gosh! I was so worried because you were hanging from the ceiling and then you fell and we brought you back here well actually Buffy carried you back here and you're a girl now. And why were you dressed like a girl? That's the only way we figure the spell could have turned you into one, because it turns you into whatever you're dressed as and if you're a girl now…"

     Looking over at Buffy, Xander saw he was being regarded with the same sort of expression the blonde ordinarily gave to a particularly icky-looking demon. "I didn't dress as a woman! The Xan-man is completely heterosexual. No cross-dressing tendencies here at all. None." And that probably would have been better if his new voice wasn't a lot softer, cuter, and… well… undeniably more feminine than his old voice. Damnit.

     "Yeah, well, you're kinda a girl now. I turned into a noblewoman, Willow turned into a ghost, and all the other people out there turned into your costumes. You're a girl now. I know I'm not the brightest girl in town, but that's kinda like… two plus two, Xander." Buffy paused and tilted her head to the side. "You know, that brings us back to the 'What are we going to call Xander now that he's a she?' conversation…"

     Prying Willow off him, Xander groaned and pushed himself up to sit on the… library table, it turned out. Oh, and Giles was standing in the doorway to his office, cleaning his glasses. That couldn't be good. Granted Giles cleaned his glasses when someone said something stupid, but it was still a sign that whatever was going on, Giles wasn't a happy man. "Why? I don't need a new name. I'm Xander. Xander Xander Xander!"

     Buffy rolled her eyes. "Stand up." Xander slid over to the edge of the table and hopped off, moving to stand in front of Buffy. Buffy, who seemed to be a bit taller than he remembered her being. "Notice anything?"

     "Uh, by any chance did your costume make you grow, say… four inches or so?" Xander was shocked. As of a few hours ago, he'd been nearly eight inches taller than the rather diminutive blonde, and now… they weren't that far apart in height. Two inches, three tops. Buffy shook her head. "I think we've already covered this… but shit." Buffy stepped forward and hooked her finger in the neckline of Xander's costume, pulling it out. Xander looked down. There were two pale, way larger than his chest had any right to be, definitely attached mounds of flesh there. "Shit shit." She repeated the process with the waistband of the pants… and there was something absent that Xander most definitely missed. "Did I say shit yet?"

     Letting go, Buffy put her hands on Xander's shoulders. "So, are we in agreement yet that you're not quite Xander anymore?" He nodded. "Good, because we really don't have time for the whole stages of loss thing. We need to figure out what we're going to do with you."

     Xander was puzzled, and then deeply ashamed as he realized Buffy was actually out-thinking him at the moment. "I can't go home like this. My parents definitely won't recognize me and my dad…" He trailed off as he realized that if he was anywhere near as sexy as the 'real' Spider-Girl was - and it was so bizarre to think of even the possibility of the word 'sexy' applying to him - his drunken lout of a father might do a whole lot worse than simply beat him if he showed up at home. "Hell, nobody will recognize me. I could use the ATM to empty the little that's in my bank account, but I can't exactly show up to school or anything and be like, 'Hi, I'm Xander, I'm going to go to class now.' Oh God, what am I going to do?"

     "You can stay with me tonight?" Willow came over, opening her arms to offer a hug that Xander gladly accepted. At least Willow wasn't too weirded out by the newest twist in the weirdness that Sunnydale had thrown their way. "My parents are at some convention and won't be home for a while. And I can bring back all the assignments from school so you don't fall behind."

     Willow stopped to think for a moment and Buffy jumped on the opportunity Xander had known she was angling for… and was dreading. "And I can take you out shopping! Well, unless you want to try and get into your house and then run around in too-big guys' clothes?" That neatly cut off his objection that he really, really didn't need any girl clothes. He looked down. The one outfit that fit him at the moment was a skintight red and blue costume. Alright, he'd admit it: maybe a few changes of girl clothes would be a good idea. Just to tide him over until things got sorted out.

     Giles finally looked up from his glasses as he could join the conversation. "While I'm not familiar with the spell Ethan used, he was stupid enough to leave all his research and books near where the bust of Janus was. I… liberated… a few of them on my way out of the shop. I'm hopeful we'll be able to locate a method of reversing the spell."

     Hugging Willow for support - oh God, he really was a girl - Xander nodded. "Alright. I can do this. I mean, Buffy and Willow have been girls for years. How bad can it be?"

     "That's the spirit!" Buffy gave him a smile. "So… what are we going to call you?"

     Groaning, Xander absently raised his arm and brought his middle and ring fingers in to touch his palm. It was hard to tell who was more surprised, Buffy or Xander, when a thin stream of white fluid shot out of Xander's wrist, webbing Buffy's mouth shut. "Okay… that's a little cool." It was then that he noticed his wrists were conspicuously bare; he spotted the long, flat metal gauntlets of his web-shooters sitting on the library table. "And a little disturbing. Even if I kept her powers and her looks, Spider-Girl shoots web from web-shooters. Not from her wrist."

     "Does it really matter?" Willow watched as Buffy tried to peel the webbing off, almost getting one hand stuck to her face in the process. "Webbing is webbing, right?"

     "Venom X, Willow." The redhead went even paler than usual and Xander turned to explain the term to Giles. "Long story short, Spider-Man has a villain named Venom, who's a human host with an alien symbiote that used to be Spider-Man's partner. He has all of Spider-Man's powers, except stronger. And can shoot organic webs instead of using chemicals like Spidey does. In one of the comics, his daughter ends up with the symbiote. I don't know about you, but I don't think we need an evil alien symbiote stuck to me while I run around on top of the Hellmouth. Seems right up there with licking a power outlet in the 'tempting fate' department…"

     Giles looked away from where Buffy had finally given up in her attempts to remove the webbing, shuddering at the prospect. "Err, yes, quite. Is there some way of telling whether or not you're… infected? Possessed?"

     Closing his eyes, Xander focused. Then he focused harder. After a minute, his eyes opened and he peeked down at what he was wearing. Still the Spider-Girl costume. "Okay, if Venom was hitching a ride on me, my costume would have responded to my thoughts. So I think we're safe."

     "Now that we have matters as settled as they can be at the moment, I suggest that we all go home for the evening." Buffy had produced a knife out of somewhere and Giles sighed as he let the blonde poke at her own face for a few seconds before confiscating the knife for her own safety. "Xander, I'll do some digging and meet with you sometime tomorrow afternoon. We can discuss your options then."

     Xander nodded, collecting his web-shooters and mask before heading for the door. "Sounds good to me. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I want to go home… well, to Willow's home at least, and crawl into bed before something even weirder happens to me tonight."