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Hero System 1.2 beta

He stood on an obsidian plane staring at a trio of sets of floating words. To his left the words were in red and appeared to be in Japanese. Straight in front of him they were blue and said, 'H.H. the Game' in English with 'Options' and 'Game Start' below that. Finally, to the right was, 'W.W.' in green English with 'Options' and 'Game Start' below.

He stood there for an indeterminate amount of time before it occurred to him that he should do something. Staring straight ahead, he said, "Options."

The blue letters flashed twice and a new set of words appeared in their place with several pictures below.

Hellmouth High: The Game

Character choice?

He instinctively waved his hand and assorted characters scrolled past with various titles and stats below them. He paused when it reached a dark haired teen and he read that entry.

"Alexander 'Xander' Harris - sidekick. Load character?" asked a voice.

"Load character," he agreed.

Xander spun around, wondering what was going on as he stared out at the featureless black landscape and sets of floating words before focusing on the ones in front of him that held his character sheet and he recalled what he'd done. He hadn't realized how empty he was until he'd become Xander. Things made a lot more sense now.

Examining his character sheet, Xander frowned. He had better stats than he expected, but he was being dragged down by 'Inferiority Complex, Major', and he really didn't believe that half the flaws they had listed for him were flaws. 'Hero Complex', which boiled down to not being able to leave someone in danger was hardly a flaw for instance, it was simply common human decency.

He had ten points to spend, but that wasn't enough to buy off a major inferiority complex, so he quickly searched through the listing for a flaw he could exchange it for, preferably something that only came up in a limited number of situations, rather than in every single roll of the dice!

He considered trading 'Never wanting for a nail' - a perk that made sure he was in the right place at the right time with the right tools to help the hero - but that was locked in place as a sidekick requirement, so he had to search for a better one.

It took a while, but he finally found one he could live with: 'Horn Dog' gave him major negatives in regards to controlling his libido, but he already had negative modifiers in that category from being a Californian teenage male. He was pretty sure that was an unfair stereotype, but since the negatives didn't stack he was fine with it.

He looked at his ten points remaining and then glanced through the list for merits, quickly snatching up 'double jointed', 'ambidextrous', and 'photographic reflexes' before stopping to look at his stats. None of his stats were all that impressive, but no longer being saddled with the 'inferiority complex' flaw should really help him get more from the mental ones. However, his dexterity was listed as low with the description being clumsy and he really wanted to rid himself of that one.

Two points in dexterity raised it to average, with the description being, 'Can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time!'

Xander snickered and dropped the final point into intelligence, not raising it from high-average, but changing the description from 'Honors Student' to 'With Honors Student'.

"Load Save?" Xander asked, satisfied with it for the moment.

"No saves available," the voice replied and Xander let out a relieved sigh as he'd forgotten to set difficulty and check some of the options.

"Set difficulty to easy, auto map on, scan on, help manual on, pause on, auto-save on, notifications on."

The game dutifully switched all his choices on.

"Cheat codes on?" he asked hopefully.

"Enter cheat code," the voice replied.

"Konami code," he offered, crossing his fingers.

"Random hats awarded, bobble head toggle enabled," the voice replied.

Xander reached up and pulled off a rather fancy top hat and chuckled. Re-checking the options, he nodded. "Start new game," he ordered and the world dissolved into pixels.

"Bro, what's with the hats?" Jesse asked.

The world had reformed and Xander found himself standing in front of Sunnydale High School with Jesse and Willow.

"Pause game," Xander said, causing the world to freeze and turn grey around him. He knew he was a blank avatar, who'd chosen to download the Xander character profile, created for the sole purpose of playing the game, but he was also Xander in a very real sense and he'd just regained the two people who meant the most to him.

Willow looked so young and innocent, and the eyes she turned his way were filled with love and affection; while Jesse looked... alive and mischievous as always.

"Why do I remember things that haven't happened to me... erm, him, yet?" Xander asked, as his memories of his life as Xander lasted until well after the formation of a new council.

A pleasant female voice spoke up from nowhere, "On the easy difficulty setting the character will recall one full play-through of the game on the nightmare difficulty setting to make things easier."

"Who said that?" Xander asked, looking around for a hidden speaker.

"On the easy difficulty setting the help manual is verbally activated," the voice replied.

"That's handy," Xander said. He took a few deep breaths and relaxed. He could make things better this time. He could keep his friends alive and uncorrupted!

"Unpause," Xander said. As the world regained color and motion he placed the top hat on Willow's head. "It feels like a day for hats," Xander said, smiling at the pair.

Jesse reached over and stole a grey fedora off Xander's head. "Couldn't agree more, bro."

Willow removed the top hat, blushing, and fiddled with it, unexpectedly dropping a rabbit out of it.

The three teens stared at the rabbit as it shook itself and hopped away.

"That was not in it a second ago!" Willow exclaimed, examining the hat for a hidden compartment.

The bell rang and the three quickly crossed the street to attend classes before they ended up late for school. Xander found the school was a lot easier this time around and not just because he'd gone through it all before. Without that little voice in his head telling him he wasn't smart enough to be in this class and distracting him with thoughts on how he was going to fail, it was easy to breeze through the material, take notes, and participate in class; though his knowledge of actual historical events being influenced by supernatural forces did lead to some interesting arguments with the history teacher as to what and why things had occurred in the past while not mentioning anything about supernatural creatures.

Lunch

"You've been studying," Jesse said as the three sat on the grass and broke out their lunches.

"Makes school a whole lot easier and Willow a whole lot happier," Xander said with a smile.

"Hey!" Willow complained, before noting what he'd actually said, since usually they both just teased her about her school addiction. "Yes, it does," she agreed.

"+1 Points to relationship with Willow," a female voice announced, which only Xander noticed.

Jesse reached over and pulled a beanie with a propeller off Xander's head. "Where are you getting these?" he asked, giving the propeller a spin which quickly whirled to life and jerked itself out of his hands, vanishing into the sky.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Xander said earnestly.

"I've pulled a nudie playing card, a poker chip, and a five dollar silver piece out of the hatband of the fedora and I made sure no one had a chance to stick anything in it after the first two times," Jesse said. "I'm leaning towards open minded at the moment."

"A half dozen doves flew out of my locker where I stuck the hat," Willow said. "Plus, that beanie should not have been able to fly off like that."

"Pause," Xander said, causing the world to grey out once more. "Save game, slot 2."

"Gave saved in slot 2," the feminine voice replied.

"Unpause," Xander said.

"Hat," his two friends chorused, pointing at his head.

"I saw that. I'm not crazy, right? You guys would tell me if I went crazy?" Willow asked quickly.

"I saw it," Jesse assured her. "One moment nothing, next moment hat."

Xander took off a large, white cowboy hat. "That happens when I use the pause button."

"You have a universal remote?" Jesse asked, trying to figure it out.

"Figure of speech," Xander replied. "My life has been turned into a video game by some higher power, so I can simply say pause and look through option screens, save game, the usual stuff."

"That sounds crazy, but the hats don't lie," Jesse said.

"Couldn't it just be that you've developed amazing powers and they took that form because it's what you know?" Willow asked hopefully as that didn't require a complete reworking of their reality like what Xander had said would.

"And how does that explain the hats?" Jesse asked.

"It could and probably is," Xander told Willow, seeing how stressed she was getting and was immediately awarded by her letting out a relieved sigh. "And the hats are because I tried to access a cheat menu and used the Konami Code. It awarded me random hats and a bobble head mode toggle."

"I'd say ultimate cosmic power filtered through your brain just took a leap forward," Jesse said. "Because that is so you."

"This is so cool," Willow squealed, thinking of tests she could perform; maybe at her house, with just Xander there...

"+1 relationship points with Willow," a female voice announced.

"That's why school got so easy for you," Jesse said, "you got smarter!"

"No- well, yes," Xander realized. "I made a couple of changes to my character sheet and spent my start up points."

"What did you do?" Willow asked, concerned and not wanting him to change from the person she knew and loved.

"The first thing I did was switch out one flaw for another," Xander explained. "I had major inferiority complex which gave me a penalty to every action roll I made."

Jesse and Willow winced.

"Yeah," Xander said, seeing they understood. "I traded it for a flaw that would come into play in only a few situations and I already had a major negative modifier in those situations that the new flaw doesn't stack with."

"What did you choose?" Willow asked, concerned.

"Well, apparently Californian Teenage Male has a negative seven in willpower versus sexual situations and Major Horndog just raises that to negative nine," Xander admitted.

"That's... a good decision," Willow allowed as she considered the numbers, while a small corner of her brain was factoring that into her behavior around Xander and making happy noises.

"+1 point to relationship with Willow."

"Good choice, bro," Jesse said cheerfully.

Xander laughed as something clicked and he could see one of Jesse's flaws. "You would say that, you already have that flaw."

"Can you see our character sheets?" Jesse asked.

"I can barely see mine, the stats are words rather than numbers, and some sections are just blobs of color only certain things are completely understandable," Xander said. "I had ten character generation points available, so I bought ambidextrous, double jointed, and photographic reflexes."

"+10 relationship points with Willow."

"Dude!" Jesse said in awe, while Willow tried to will herself not to blush and that small section of her brain started annexing a greater portion of her mental resources.

"I know," Xander agreed. "The reflexes cost five points, but the other two were only a point apiece."

"And the rest?" Willow asked.

"I dropped most of them into Dex," Xander explained. "It won't tell me my exact scores, but Dex was listed as low with a description of 'clumsy'. Mine is now average with a description of 'Can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time'."

The two teens laughed.

"Yeah, that's all you," Jesse assured him.

"The final point I dropped into intelligence; which didn't move it out of high average, but did change the description from 'Honors student' to 'With honors student'," Xander explained.

"+15 relationship points with Willow," the female voice announced.

"Can you read my character sheet and do I have any start up points?" Jesse asked eagerly.

"I don't know," Xander said. "I can see some bits when I look at you, like name and I knew the flaw because I have the same, but... huh."

"What?" Willow asked.

"I'm not getting anything more, but I do believe Jesse does have start up points," Xander said.

"Really?" Jesse asked excitedly. "How do I spend them?"

"No idea," Xander admitted.

"You just got your powers," Willow said. "Let's get you some experience using them before we start altering other peoples' stats. I mean, what if you accidentally change Jesse from male to female, or give him an attraction to guys?"

Jesse made a face. "She makes a good point."

"We can work on them tonight when you come over to study with me," Willow told Xander, scooting closer to him.

"Willpower roll failed," the female voice announced as Xander unconsciously put his arm around Willow who smiled broadly. "+1 Relationship points with Willow."

"So what character class are you?" Jesse asked.

"Sidekick," Xander replied, not noticing Willow leaning in to him.

"Does that mean there is a hero somewhere? Am I the hero?" Jesse asked hopefully.

"None of us are heroes, bro," Xander said. "Not as far as I know anyway. Ask me again next week."

"Will do," Jesse agreed cheerfully just as the bell rang.

Typing by: Ordieth