(Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon. Corruption of Champions belongs to Fenoxo.)

WARNING~WARNING

Corruption of Champions is an erotic text adventure RPG that explores a wide range of strange rape fantasy fetishes and transformation kinks. If you are not mostly desensitized to the sheer oddness of the delightful sexual deviancy that can be found in the stranger corners of the internet, you are likely to eventually be squicked out by something in this crossover, and should therefore not read it.

You have been warned.

A Wrong Turn at Ingnam

The mouth of the cave loomed ominously, like the ravenous maw of some great beast. Stalactites hung like a row of jagged teeth, and there was a faint damp warmth emanating from within, reinforcing the impression of a monstrous mouth.

"You're sure Dawn went this way?" Xander demanded of the tough old coot who was clambering up the rock to his right.

Elder Nomur nodded gravely. "Quite sure, young man. Your lovely young friend wished to examine the portal, and as you have seen, the path from Ingnam may be difficult to trod, but it is not difficult to follow. If the young miss has not returned, I fear she may have met something from the other side."

On Xander's left, Tara looked up with a face full of worry. She moved up the rocks like they were a simple ladder, thanks to the spell that showed up as a soft lavender glow around her hands.

"Or maybe she just lost track of time?" Tara offered hopefully as she crawled out onto the final rise with a little, "Ooph."

Xander took Tara's offered hand and hauled himself up, grabbing a stalagmite to steady himself. Elder Nomur clambered up beside him. The old guy really was suspiciously spry.

"The Maw of Mount Ilgast and the Mareth hellmouth," Elder Nomur announced ominously.

Xander vaulted between stalagmites and landed on the floor of the cave with a slap of shoes on wet stone. It was noticeably warmer and damp inside the cave, with an odd pulsing purple-pink light coming from further in. The humid heat prickled on Xander's skin, making his jeans and button shirt feel stifling, and for no apparent reason he suddenly felt a vague aimless stirring in his loins.

"Oh," Tara breathed softly as she stepped down beside him, looking a little flush.

"Dawn!" Xander called. "Come on, Dawnster, don't Do this to me. Just think of how insufferable Buffy'll be if you got kidnapped again! Dawn!"

In the time it took Xander to call out, he and Tara had explored the cave and found the pulsing purple-pink portal at the back. It further reinforced the impression of the cave as a monstrous mouth, like a throat waiting to swallow any hapless mortals who wandered too close.

"Look," Tara said, spotting Dawn's discarded hiker's backpack sitting against a rock.

Xander picked it up and found it to be intact, but he spotted something else. Footprints and scuff marks on the wet stone, leading into the portal. "That's... not good, is it."

"It is as I feared," Elder Nomur said. "Something from the other side has lured your young friend into the portal. She is lost to us."

"Hey, no!" Xander said frantically. "Don't say that. She just went through. That doesn't mean we can't still save her. I mean, that's what we do. Dawn gets in trouble, and we save her. Right? We've got a sat-phone. We can call Buffy! Right?"

Elder Nomur shook his head sadly. "Alas, the passage is one-way. One may enter, but no being with a soul may pass through the hellmouth from the other side."

Xander stilled. "You're saying she's trapped, and anyone who goes after her is trapped too."

"It was the demons' first victory," Elder Nomur said solemnly. "If it is any consolation, the hazards of Mareth are rarely deadly. Your friend may survive a good long while..."

"But in what condition?" Tara worried, holding onto Xander's arm for strength. "What'll happen to her?"

"Ah, that is less than certain," Elder Nomur told them. "Mareth is a hell of eldritch lusts, temptation and predation. That much is known. I am sorry to say that your young friend is in constant danger of violations of a carnal nature, in that realm."

"You're telling me Dawn might have been dragged off by demons so they can rape her?" Xander demanded.

Tara gasped and covered her mouth in dismay. "Dawnie..."

The old man nodded soberly.

Xander looked at Tara. "We can't just leave her. Not to that."

"Oh, goddess, what do we tell Buffy?" Tara exclaimed. "We can't make her chose between her sister and her duty. Not when thinking Dawn is safely away from trouble is the only thing keeping her going. This would break her."

"We can't wait for her anyway," Xander said. "Not when Dawn could be... she needs us now."

"Ah," Elder Nomur said sadly. "So, it has come to this after all, young champions."

With a flourish, the old man pulled a leather tome out of his robes. He also produced a feather quill as he propped the book on a convenient rock and opened it to a blank page.

"Um, what's that?" Tara asked.

"This, my brave dear, is the Book of Champions," Elder Nomur explained. "All who take up the quest of defending our realm from the corruption of Mareth are recorded within. Write your names in the book, and I shall carry your farewells until your friends come looking for you."

Xander glanced at Tara. She nodded nervously. Xander took the offered quill and bent over the book.

"A final warning," Elder Nomur put in. "Should you step through that portal, you must be prepared to endure all manner of carnal violation. If you are strong and clever, you may avoid it for quite a while, but eventually you will be raped."

Xander growled at him. "Why? What makes you so sure that'll happen?"

"No one who sets foot in Mareth avoids that fate forever," Elder Nomur explained seriously. "Perhaps from the monsters who have no thought but to mate. Perhaps from the demons seeking to corrupt you. Perhaps from addled denizens who are themselves corrupted." He paused. "Perhaps, even, from each other."

"Wha?! No. No!" Xander looked at Tara wide-eyed then back to the old man. "I'd never... Tara'd never even..."

Elder Nomur shook his head sharply. "You must understand. In Mareth, lust does not fade naturally, with time and distraction. Only through carnal release. It is well documented that Champions must manage their lust carefully, and never ignore it."

Tara stared at Xander for a moment before blushing. But she stepped forward and took the quill from him. Leaning down, she wrote her name at the top of the blank page. As soon as she did, the magical ink spread down the page, and a portrait of her along with a short summary of her appearance and abilities faded into being.

"For Dawn," Tara murmured softly, handing Xander the quill.

Xander nodded, resolute. "For Dawn."

Tara tumbled out of the portal and fell onto hard packed grey dirt. Her ears were wringing and it was a struggle to stay conscious after that dizzying trip, but Tara managed to force herself up to her knees. Beside her, Xander groaned from beneath both his own and Dawn's hiking pack.

"Hey mister carnival guy, I want my money back," Xander slurred.

Tara managed to get herself into a sitting position and looked around. The sky was lit in the colors of sunset even though the sun was high overhead. They'd fallen out of the portal onto a flat area of packed grey dirt, broken up by mounds and crags of rust-red rock and stone. The ground sloped down away from them before opening up into a small clearing in the hills of rock.

There was something down there, something moving, and Tara blinked furiously as she tried to get her eyes to focus and her sense of balance to behave. Finally, her senses started to work again and the blur in clearing resolved into an undulating tangle of red and light tan.

For a moment, Tara wasn't sure what she was seeing. Then the sounds finally reached her. The grunts and moans, the wet slap and shlick of flesh on flesh. All at once the image clicked into focus and Tara's heart nearly stopped.

Dawn!

The nubile teen who'd long since earned a place in Tara's heart as a little sister was buried under a horde of naked little red-skinned imps, all wielding bulging, veiny, full-sized male organs that looked preposterously large on their diminutive bodies. Dawn's legs stuck up into the air from amidst the horde, and Tara's eyes helplessly picked out other details.

Two imps held her legs in place. One imp braced between Dawn's thighs, thrusting with his whole body as his monstrous red erection reappeared and vanished into Dawn's vaginal canal again and again. An imp sat on her chest, mauling at her modest breasts. Another was wrapped around her face, humping his hips against Dawn's gaping mouth and choking her with his penis.

The worst part was that Dawn wasn't fighting back. Her hands were busy masturbating the two imps who were holding her legs up. Her body, sheened with sweat, writhed and shuddered, obviously not under conscious direction.

Taking it in hit Tara like a punch to the gut, but instead of the horror she might have expected, Tara felt her heart stutter as a sweaty flush prickled over her skin. She felt her panties go damp and her nipples harden inside her bra. She... she was... she was watching Dawn being gangraped by hellspawn and Tara was getting off on it.

How... how could it... how could she... It was Dawnie. Tara needed to save her. Not... oh goddess she almost didn't want to stop them... but how could that... how could she... It was Dawnie. How could she... oh goddess, she was horrible... worse than anything her family ever said about her... Dawnie... violated... wanted to watch it happen... how could she... oh goddess...

One of the imps that was holding Dawn's legs glanced around and did a double-take when he spotted Tara and Xander. He started in surprise and slugged the imp that was busy fucking Dawn's pussy.

"Lord Zetaz!" the surprised imp cried in a grating little voice. "Look! More humans!"

Tara needed to move, to act, to do something, but her body's reaction to Dawn's plight was all she could manage to think about. Her shame just circled itself in her head, going nowhere and holding her paralyzed.

Finally regaining his senses as he heard a nasal voice shout something about more humans to a Lord Zetaz, Xander took in the scene and saw... exactly what he'd been afraid they'd find. A horde of oversexed little demons were violating Dawn. Right in front of him. It was one thing to fear it as a possibility, to try to brace himself to do what needed doing, but seeing it with his own eyes so soon was too much.

The things were raping Dawn. Their little Dawnie. His adorable Dawnster.

Snarling in jealous rage - protective, that's a protective rage - Xander grabbed his battleaxe, shrugged the hiking packs off, and lurched to his feet. Half staggering, half running, Xander closed the distance and swung his axe, cleaving down through that first imp's skull before the little demon could finish picking up a bandoleer of vials.

Ripping his axe free and moving forward with a singular purpose, Xander cut down the imp abusing Dawn's boobies with a wide slash. The imp on Dawn's face took no notice of this, too busy fucking his big red tool into her throat with his eyes closed in orgasmic bliss. Xander grabbed that imp by the neck and tore him off of Dawn's face, swinging him around even as the imp's cock continued to spurt demon jizz, and dashed him against the rocks as hard as he could.

"Noohohh, uaahhhnnanh," Dawn moaned incoherently.

Two imps left, one who turned and fled, and the so-called Lord who was still pounding into Dawn's pussy with a frantic urgency. The imp was actually still trying to finish, Xander realized. Zetaz glowered up at Xander even as he continued to thrust frantically.

Xander reared back and kicked Zetaz in the face. Or at least he tried to. The imp was quick, tearing himself away from Dawn at the last instant with a frustrated snarl and leaping back to dodge Xander's shoe. The imp's big wet erection bobbled obscenely as Zetaz danced out of the way of Xander's followup slash.

"Fools!" Zetaz sneered as two little wings unfurled from his back and he took to the air. "You will regret interfering with me! Remember this day, for soon you'll face the wrath of Lethice!"

Xander took one last swipe at the imp, but Zetaz turned and flew off, quickly vanishing in the distance. "I'll wrath your lettuce, you filthy coward!"

Panting, Xander lowered his axe and turned to check on Dawn... and was suddenly painfully aware that his jeans were way too tight. His legs buckled just a little in a vain attempt to free up room in his pants once he saw Dawn.

Dawn was sprawled out on the ground, covered in sweat and other fluids, paying no attention to anything but her own body as she furiously jilled herself, rubbing at her clit with one hand and stuffing as much of her other hand into her pussy as she could. Her hips bucked up towards Xander as if in invitation.

Xander slapped himself.

It didn't do much for his state of arousal, but he put that aside for the moment to make sure Dawn was okay after what the imps had done to her. What had the imps done to her? She seemed lost in her lust. Something was going on. A spell? A potion?

Xander knelt down and sat Dawn up, trying really hard to ignore that Dawn was furiously masturbating in his arms. "Dawn! Hey, come on, they're gone. Wake up or snap out of it or just give me some sign you're still in there!"

Dawn's eyes rolled around and focused on him in dull recognition. "Xander," she breathed huskily.

"Dawn," Xander sighed in relief.

"Xander," Dawn said again, in a tone that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. She hadn't stopped touching herself.

"Dawnie?" Xander definitely didn't squeak.

"Xander."

Suddenly she twisted in his arms and went for his belt buckle like a guided missile. Xander fell onto his butt as Dawn got the belt open and managed to undo the button too. Then she tugged down his fly. Then she reach in and her hand was on his -

"Gah!" Xander crabwalked back and caught Dawn's wrists when she tried to follow him. "Dawn, no! You can't! I can't! You've been drugged, or you're under a spell or something."

"Don't care." Dawn let him have her wrists and switched to using her teeth to pull his boxers down.

Xander let go of her hands and tried to block her at the source. "Because you're not in your right mind!"

"Won't care," Dawn growled. "Want you. Need you. Always have. Always will."

Xander had known about her long-standing crush on him, of course, but hearing her say it like that while she was coming at him naked and wet... great googly moogly. Xander hesitated long enough for Dawn to wrench his jeans and boxers down from his hips, freeing his hard shaft. That part of him certainly wasn't listening to any objections from up top.

Dawn tackled him, and he felt the tingling heat of her skin mash little Xander against his belly. She reached down to guide him in, and he realized he couldn't stop her without getting violent... and he wanted to not get violent more than he wanted to stop her. The sweltering core of her enveloped him and he slid into her with little resistance as she sank down.

With his cock inside her, Dawn seemed to regain a small measure of sanity. She leaned down and kissed him with more affection than lust.

"Heard them talking," Dawn panted as she started rolling her hips. "Wears off. Until it does. Need this. Need you."

Xander gave in.

Tara had snapped out of her paralyzing downward spiral when Xander had gone crashing into the imps like a softball into a stack of cans. Of course one weird reaction didn't make her a horrible person or mean that her caring for Dawn was false. It had taken her off guard, and stirred up old fears, but it wasn't even that surprising.

Obviously, those imps had done something nasty to Dawn, but Tara's hindbrain had no way of comprehending that. Dawn hadn't been giving off any signs of animal distress, so all her baser self saw was a pretty girl having quite passionate and enthusiastic sex.

Speaking of which, now that the imps were dead or driven off it looked like Xander was in a losing battle with Dawn's addled affections. Deciding to make herself useful to cover for her lapse, Tara peered into Dawn's aura and winced. There was a burning river of amorous compliance piercing her, but that was actually kind of reassuring. Her aggressiveness towards Xander was all because he was Xander and not due to whatever'd been done to her.

Forcing herself to look away as Dawn eagerly mounted Xander, Tara wringed her hands and wondered what to do. It was probably a good idea to keep watch while Xander was, um, helping Dawn. There might be more imps lurking, or coming to retrieve the bodies of their fallen as unlikely as that probably was.

Leaving Dawn and Xander to each other, Tara spotted something strange about one of the fallen imps. Seizing on the distraction from the tantalizing sounds coming from behind her, Tara knelt over the little red corpse and prodded at the oddly shimmering grey scar that marked where Xander's axe had split the imp's head. There was no blood, or other signs that the wound had been anything more than this odd scar, glowing in her aura sight.

Just as she was pondering how to delve into this oddity, a particularly loud cry of passion made her glance over without meaning to. Tara's loins clenched, reminding her forcefully that the squishy ache between her legs wasn't going away. At some point Xander had flipped Dawn around. He was up on one knee with both of Dawn's legs over one shoulder and both of his arms around her back holding her up off the ground as he bounced her butt against his pelvis. For a moment, Tara couldn't help staring, head tilting to one side as Dawn's hands went under her to do something to Xander's butt.

Tearing herself away, a flushed Tara wobbled back up towards the portal. The ground was oddly flat and firm, in contrast to the rough red stone that rose from it, like a river of clay had poured across the land here. The portal itself sat under a natural arch of red rock, which was the highest point in the immediate vicinity.

Leaning against the face of the arch, Tara took several deep meditative breaths, trying to calm her body and mind. It worked in the latter case. Not so much in the former.

Fidgeting fretfully, Tara looked around and wondered if she could really drop her pants and finger herself right then and there in the open rocks. The urge to do so wasn't overpowering, but it also wasn't going away.

Oh right. It wouldn't. Elder Nomur had told them, warned them, time and distraction wouldn't diminish how horny she was, in this place. Only actual orgasms would do that. Tara sighed sheepishly at not remembering that right away.

Until Dawn and Xander were done, though, she probably did need to keep a look out.

Tara looked up consideringly at the natural arch above the portal. She could probably see anything nasty coming a ways off from up there. Casting the same spell she'd used on Mount Ilgast, Tara slowly climbed up the side of the natural arch until she could she could sit with her legs dangling off the edge.

For the time being, Tara decided to call the direction the portal was facing, south. Grassy plains stretched as far as the eye could see to the north. A snow-capped mountain range broke the horizon to the west. To the east, it looked like they were right on the edge of a lush forest. And off to the south was the glimmer of a vast lake.

Tara settled in on her perch and tried not to let the sounds from the rocks below get to her.

Shuddering and gasping, Dawn finally collapsed against Xander's hard chest. His pec twitched against her cheek, the skin sticky with sweat. Her ragged breaths puffed over shiny damp as her body trembled and twitched, and her inner walls fluttered around the goopy mess of Xander's half-hard, utterly spent penis.

The unnatural need had finally faded, leaving Dawn exhausted and achy, soaked with sweat and cum. It sounded gross in her head, but somehow it wasn't. Not with Xander. She just wanted to wallow in his Xanderness and very stubbornly not think about how this longed-for consummation came about in the first place.

"I... think I'm... done," Dawn panted.

A soft thud, the slight shock translating through Xander's bones as he let his head fall back onto the clay ground. "Oh thank gods."

Dawn peeked up at him shyly with the eye that wasn't mired to his heaving chest in a layer of sweat. Just when she was starting to worry that maybe she'd taken liberties with Xander a bit further than he was okay with, he slid his hands up her back and tenderly folded his arms around her, reassuring her. He gently gathered her hair and tucked it aside before wrapping her up in the tight embrace of his big manly Xander arms.

"Are you okay?" Xander asked peering down at her with concern.

Dawn swallowed the lump that rose in her throat and nodded. "Thanks, Xander. For loving me. For being my first. For making this, like, the best Tuesday instead of the second-worst."

Xander smiled that smile of his that melted Dawn's heart, but it was fleeting. He blinked, and suddenly developed a pained expression. "Um, Dawn..."

"You were my first," Dawn growled tiredly. "Those imp guys just... got me ready for you."

Xander smiled sadly. "Dawn..."

Damn it, why did he have to be so perceptive now of all times? Dawn screwed her eyes shut and tried to shut out everything else as though she could bury herself in all the pure Xander she was experiencing at that moment.

"I can't," Dawn bit out, "regret making love to you. Or having wild monkey sex with you, as the case may be. I can't."

"It's okay," Xander murmured.

Dawn wasn't sure she was making sense, but who'd expect her to when she'd just been gang-raped by demons - no, damnit! She wasn't going there! She was stronger than that. Her feelings for Xander were stronger than that. She was not going to let this break her and she especially wasn't going to let it taint her first time with Xander!

As though to prove her wrong, Xander's slowly shrinking dick chose that moment to plop out of her in a a flood of cum. Dawn shuddered, suddenly feeling like, with Xander's penis out of the way, a bunch of evil demonic cocks were just waiting to plunge in and infect her with their evil.

Dawn shivered violently.

Once that weird liquid had hit her, it was like nothing else mattered. She'd just forgotten about fighting them off and started desperately fingering herself right there in front of them. It was so bad she would have begged anything to fuck her.

Dawn clung to the wonderful way her spent body felt. That feeling, it wasn't just satisfaction. It was safety.

Xander held Dawn until she stopped shaking. Once she did, he sat up, wincing as Dawn peeled her face off his chest, and looked around for something to cover up with.

"Dawn? What happened to your clothes?" Xander asked.

Dawn shrugged. "They got ripped off. I had a change of underwear in my pack..."

"Don't worry, we brought it," Xander assured her, grabbing his own boxers and jeans. He handed his undershirt to her. "Here."

Dawn smiled at him as she used it to wipe off the worst of the mess, then handed it back to him so he could do the same. Xander gave her his button-shirt when he was done and she slipped her arms through the sleeves. She went up on tiptoe and kissed him before bothering to do up the buttons.

"Oh man," Xander chuckled as he pulled his pants up. "Buffy is gonna kill me."

"Pfft," Dawn said. "You're like the one guy she trusts with me, and you know Buffy gets antsy when you're single."

Xander blinked at this. "Wait, she does? Since when?"

"Since always," Dawn said. "Hey look! My shoes!"

Xander watched Dawn go over and pick up her hiking boots. He glanced at his soaked undershit and gave it up as a lost cause, tossing it aside. He'd just have to go barechested for now. Looking around, he spotted a couple other scraps of cloth, as well as a couple of cloth pouches the imps must have dropped. Xander picked one up and peeked inside.

"Holy magumba," Xander blurted.

It was filled with small cut gemstones. A lot of gemstones.

"Xander?"

Xander wordlessly handed Dawn the pouch and went looking through the other pouches. Those didn't have anything near as cool in them, but he did find a couple of foul-smelling rice cakes and a couple of vials.

Gathering them up anyway, Xander looked around for Tara and didn't see any sign of her. "Huh. Tara? Tara!"

"Tara's here too?" Dawn asked hopefully.

"She was with the packs," Xander said. "T - aoh, hi."

Tara gave an embarrassed little wave as she peeked out around some rocks. Dawn ran over and hugged the curvier girl tightly. Xander did a double take as Tara blushed like that time Willow had hugged her in a bikini, but other than that Tara simply stroked Dawn's hair in her usual motherly fashion.

"Thanks for coming to save me," Dawn said. "Again."

"Of course we did, Dawnie," Tara told her.

"So, can we go back now?" Dawn asked.

"Yeah... by which I mean no," Xander said.

"What?"

"The portal is only one-way," Tara explained sadly.

Dawn bit her lip. "You mean we're trapped? But, but, that's okay, we'll find another way, or Buffy and Willow will find us, right?"

"Eventually? Maybe?" Xander said optimistically.

Dawn started to shake, but she visibly forced herself calm. "Okay. Yeah, okay. So... what now?"

"There's a lakeshore on the other side of those rocks," Tara offered. "It's not too far."

"I could use a bath," Dawn muttered.

It was a short ten-minute hike to reach the edge of the water. Despite the muddy bank dotted with vibrant grasses and the occasional tree, the water was as clear and refreshing.

Tara sat on a handy log with the packs while Xander and Dawn took turns in the water. Once they were done, Dawn put on her spare underwear and socks, and she and Tara somehow conspired to turn his button shirt into an improvised strapless dress, with the sleeves tied around her chest.

While they were doing that, Xander was gazing out over the lake. It was a big lake, with only the faintest hint of a far shore visible. Xander spotted something moving far out on the water, and squinted.

"Hey, is that a giant turtle?" Xander wondered.

"Oh wow, it must be the size of a, a city bus," Tara said.

Xander glanced at her. "You don't think it's carnivorous, do you?"

"I, um, don't think so," Tara ventured.

"How come?" Dawn asked as they collectively started walking along the shore.

"Back at the portal, I noticed that the imps Xander killed didn't have normal wounds," Tara told them. "There was, a, um, kind of like a magical scar? Sealing off the wounds, and it didn't feel like something that was part of the imps."

"What's that got to do with giant turtles that might eat us?" Dawn asked.

"I don't, I don't think chewing would be any more effective than Xander's axe," Tara said with a little smile. "The inate magic of this place would make it pointless for a hungry animal to kill us. Besides, turtle. Not likely to be a predator."

"So, no vampires, yay, but on the other hand, mandatory vegetarianism," Xander said. "This really is a hell."

Dawn giggled.

"Y... yeah," Tara said in a small voice. "It's like Elder Nomur said. I think the only predators in this realm are after something other than meat."

The three of them walked on. It was actually kind of peaceful, if Xander let himself forget they were in a hell dimension. Dawn's stomach suddenly rumbled, reminding Xander that he was kind of hungry too.

"Break for lunch?" Xander asked cheerfully.

They found a nice shady seat under a tree. Xander slung his pack off and dug out a energy bar. Dawn took a moment to just admire his barechested form, before dropping her own pack, looking up into the branches overhead as she did.

There was fruit up there. "Hey, look, are those apples?"

"I... think they're mangos?" Tara offered uncertainly.

Dawn undid one of the buttons on her makeshift 'dress' so her legs were free to move, and quickly climbed up to grab a couple of the fruits. Droping back down, Dawn examined her prize.

"Look, they've got cat whiskers," Dawn laughed, handing one to Tara. "Are they safe to eat?"

Dawn waited while Tara did something cool and witchy to the whisker fruit in her hands. "There's something magic in them, but I don't think it's dangerous. They're edible."

"Neat," Dawn said, taking a big bite. It was delicious, different from any fruit she'd had before, but crisp and sweet. "Mmm!"

Tara kept poking at her fruit while Dawn finished her own. Dawn went over and sat next to Xander, pouting at him until he smiled and put an arm around her. Her ears were tingling and she idly scratched at them, only to pause. Her ears felt oddly... fuzzy.

Dawn sat up, frowning. Xander looked at her, and it did not make her feel better when his eyes bugged out in alarm.

"Whoa! Holy catgirls, batman!" Xander blurted.

"What?!" Dawn shrieked, hands flying to her head and finding something big, flappy, and fuzzy growing out from where here ears should have been. "What's going on?!"

The tingling in her ears finally stopped, but Dawn wasn't particularly reassured. She sprung to her feet and raced down to the water to look at her reflection. Her jaw dropped at what she saw. She had cat ears! And these weren't anything like those little play-headbands Dawn had seen girls wearing. These were fuzzy black things bigger than her hands, stretching from where her normal ears used to be to halfway up her head.

Her eyes had changed too, going slitted. At least nothing else seemed different. Maybe her nails were a bit thicker and harder, but she wasn't sure.

Xander caught up with her and pulled her into a hug. Dawn had to admit, being pressed into Xander's naked torso did a lot to improve her mood just then. Dawn looked pleadingly at Tara for an explanation.

"I... I think it was the whisker fruit," Tara said. "It could see its aura merge into yours after you ate it. I, um, don't think you'll get any more cat-parts unless you eat more of the fruit, though."

"But..."

"You make a cute catgirl," Xander told her.

Dawn grinned shyly. That did make her feel better. "You can figure out how to change me back to normal once we're back home with all the books, right?"

"I... I um... probably," Tara nodded.

Dawn let Xander guide her back up to the tree, which she gave a suspicious glower before settling down and splitting an energy bar with Tara.

As they continued along the shore of the lake, Tara hung back to go through the pouches they'd taken from the fallen imps.

The magic was in everything, so far as she could tell. Besides the gemstones, Tara found a small glass bottle of glowing milk, two vials of bubbly pink liquid, a packet of bad-smelling rice crackers, a vial of clear liquid, and two hexagonal ampules.

Each had a different feel to its aura, but Tara couldn't puzzle out what any of it meant.

"Xander, look, there's a barn over there!" Dawn called, pulling Tara out of her thoughts.

It wasn't just a barn. A quaint farmhouse sat further up the shore, and gardens of fruit and vegetables spread over patches of tilled earth. A path made of cut logs formed a path down to the water, where a canvas tent sat next to an old but sturdy-looking wooden dock with a rowboat tucked underneath.

"And somebody's home," Xander said.

A figure in overalls stood up from one of the vegetable patches and waved. Xander glanced back and Tara shrugged uncertainly.

"Should we go say hi?" Dawn asked.

"We... we can't keep walking forever, and we're lost here," Tara said. "We need help."

"Yeah, there's that," Xander agreed.

As they got closer, Tara realized the figure was a young woman... with big golden floppy dog ears and a nose with a flat bridge. She had tufts of sandy fur on her wrists and a fluffy tail poking out behind her. She must have been another person who got changed like Dawn did, only moreso.

The dog-eared farmer girl met them at the edge of the vegetable patch with a grin. "Well howdy, strangers! It sure is nice to see some new faces 'round here. My name's Whitney."

"Uh, hi, hello. I'm Xander. This is Dawn and Tara."

Tara offered a little wave. If not for the ears, tail, and wrists, Whitney would have looked like a cliche freckled blonde farmer's daughter. The kind of woman lonely country types wrote smut about. Tara ducked her head to hide her blush as she surreptitiously squeezed her legs together.

"Well, it's a mighty fine change of pace ta meet folk I don't gotta pitchfork!" Whitney told them cheerfully, with a playful leer at Xander.

"Is this your farm?" Dawn asked, hugging Xander's arm.

"Sure is," Whitney said. "The demons avoid these parts. Not rightly sure why, but I sure aint complainin'. Monsters 'round here tend ta be more docile, too, which, you know..." She blushed and changed the subject. "So where're y'all headed?"

"Actua... actually we just came through the hellmouth," Tara spoke up. "We're kind of... without anywhere to go."

"Well, that won't do," Whitney said. "Tell ya what. I could always use a few farmhands. If you're willin' ta help out, I'd be happy to put ya up in the house 'till you figure things out."

"Uh, yeah, that would be great," Xander said. "You're sure about this, though, right? I mean, you just met us."

"Yeah, but I got a good feeling 'bout ya." Whitney turned and motioned for them to follow. "C'mon, I'll show ya where the spare room is."

(So, I'm taking some liberties with the mechanics and geography of the setting to reconcile a few game mechanic inconsistencies and avoid plot holes. I'm coming at this from the angle of an adaptation of Corruption of Champions so it's going to be a bit more StationOfTheCanon-y than I usually like to do, but I'll probably make changes where it makes for better continuity.)