Some Things May Be Lost in Translation

BtVs by Mutant Enemy, Marvel Universe and its characters/events by the parent company and its many artists and writers.
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Kat Summers, formerly known as Buffy, leaned against a lamp post on the crowded sidewalk.

Her first thought on arriving in the new reality had been to people watch to figure out where she was.

It was giving her a headache.


Women in poodle skirts were walking next to women in jeans and fishnet stockings. People in bell-bottomed pants were rubbing shoulders with people in grey suits and fedoras. Ray-bans next to high heels, next to platform shoes.

"Great, what am I supposed to wear? Those things went out of fashion when my mom was in high school. Well, not everything. That's a cool retro look... Jeans have been in style forever... Oh, I get it. Everybody's wearing styles from the 60's, 70's and 80's at once. Unless there's a convention..."

She reached in the purse that came with the skirt and blouse the Powers that Be had dressed her in and pulled out her ID.

It listed her as Katherine Anne Summers, but there was something wrong with the birthdate. The day and month hadn't changed since she'd left Sunnydale, but the last two digits of the year were fuzzed out.

"Ugh. I can't tell how old I'm supposed to be. I can't even tell when the driver's license expires. Looks like it's the 20th century, though, and I already lived through that..."

Her address was listed as a P.O. Box, she had a checkbook and some carrying cash. If the contents of her purse were anything to go by, she was in New York.

"Taxi," she yelled, flagging down a passing cab. "Could you take me to this address," she asked as she climbed in, reading the bank's location off the checkbook.

As they were pulling up to the bank's impressive structure and she was counting out the change, she asked the cabdriver what year it was.

"Seriously," he asked. When she insisted on an answer, he told her and waved her out of the cab quickly.


She stumbled onto the sidewalk, one hand clutching her purse to her chest, the other one holding her head in pain.

"Ouch, I can't," she muttered to herself. "I know he said something, but... It was like he was saying four things at once... Either these guys aren't speaking English and there's a bug in whatever sci-fi translation program the PTB have set up for me, or this new 'reality' I'm supposed to live in just... isn't as real as it looks."