An Exorcism in Four Parts

By: MavenAlysse

Rating: FR13

Crossover with "Nightmare on Elm Street"

Disclaimer: Buffy, et all, belong to Whedon. Freddy belongs to Wes Craven.

Summary: What if ole Fred traveled from his roots in Springfield, Ohio and went someplace a bit warmer ... say, Sunnydale, California? Big, bad, dream demon should have the local teens dying in droves, right? Well... it is the Hellmouth, and strange things occur.

Warnings: None, really. No spoilers. No gruesome bouts of blood or guts. Actually, considering the crossover, pretty tame.

Author's Notes:

Okay – the first thing that I have to confess is that Freddy Krueger scares the absolute hallibaloo outta me. Since being an unwilling audience participant at the tender age of twelve to the second movie – gotta say I'm not lovin' the guy at all. We're talking nightmares with parental units considering therapy, here. Major badness.

So, if that's the case, why the devil am I writing a fic that even remotely mentions the guy? Well, a couple of days ago, I was surfing (gotta love those archives, right?) and someone had done a few crossovers I'd never considered (Goonies and even 21 Jump Street.) I didn't read them (I'll admit to being a bit of a coward) but it got me thinking ("Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"):

What if ole Fred traveled from his roots in Springfield, Ohio and went someplace a bit warmer ... say, Sunnydale, California? Big, bad, dream demon should have the local teens dying in droves, right?

Well... it is the Hellmouth, and strange things occur.

This is my attempt to exorcise this particular demon.

Buffy

(set any time after "The Harvest")

It was a cemetery. Not one she was familiar with, but then Sunnydale had over a dozen of them and the older ones she only did random run-throughs during patrols. She was searching for a particular demon that had been running amuck lately. A few people had been killed already, but after some research the gang came up with a possible culprit with an idea of how to dispose of said culprit. So, here she was, hunting for the wee (or not so wee) beastie in the hopes of moving on to more important things – like chilling at the Bronze.

She heard an odd noise behind her, like metal against stone. Turning she spotted a figure, male, average height, brown pants, a red and green striped shirt that looked worse then anything Xander had ever worn. His face was partially hidden by a beat up fedora, but what she could see looked horrifically scarred, like from a fire. On his right hand was a leather glove with four knives attached.

"Welcome to your nightmare. A warm night, moonlight, and you," he crooned in a raspy voice.

"Sorry, my nightmares tend to have more scariness and less singing. Though, to tell the truth, your singing could definitely be considered scary." Buffy blinked and he was suddenly only a few feet away, razored hand high, intending to slice her to ribbons.

"Whoa, neat trick. Wanna see one of mine?" Buffy quickly unsheathed the sword she'd strapped to her back, ducked the swing, and sliced his hand off. Ignoring its screams of pain (as well as discouraging words that would have had his mouth washed out with soap by her mom – a fact he did not seem to appreciate when she told him), she pulled out an aerosol can and lighter, and used the makeshift flame thrower to set the demon on fire. Nose scrunched in disgust, she used the tip of the sword to flip the demon's hand into the flames. "Demon flambe, not my favorite scent, but that'll take care of you. Shouldn't mess with the Slayer."

And Freddy Krueger was no more.

Giles

(set before "The Dark Age")

Normally, he went after teens. It was in his nature. However, this man, this Watcher, knew enough to possibly stop all his fun. So, he would have to take this man out first.

Since his death, however, he'd only been able to make a connection with teenagers and their dreams – which were wild and hormone induced. Luckily for him, the man had a wild streak to him – one that gave him dreams that tasted just like most teens. It was a way in. Freddy took it.

He looked around the dreamscape. It was of a dingy apartment. All the furniture had been pushed up against the wall. In the center of the room was a ragged looking circle drawn in chalk with symbols he wasn't familiar with. Four teens knelt around the circle, a fifth one lay within, eyes closed.

He strode over to the teen on the far side of the circle. Although younger, Freddy 'knew' that this was the Watcher. He glanced around the room, sneering, clicking his blades together in eager anticipation. "Looks like a party. Party's over."

Before he could raise his hand to kill the Watcher, the teen in the circle sat up, eyes glowing with an unholy shine. The gaze unnerved him, but he couldn't look away as the boy rose smoothly to his feet. The young man tsked very softly, "Little night terror. You've messed with the wrong human."

"Oh. I don't think so. Seems to me, I've got the upper hand here." Freddy waved his hand, and snarled in shock as the dreamscape remained unchanged. Except for the fact that the boy in the circle was no longer a boy. A hulking creature with black-gray skin, reddish orange eyes, twisted horns and a horrific face stood there now.

It crossed over the circle, brushing a hand over the head of the Watcher-teen. "This one is mine. A future sacrifice that you will not harm."

"Just who do you think you are?"

"I am Eyghon. I am the Dream Walker. I am the Corpse Stealer. I am your end, little night terror."

Eyghon rushed forward, engulfing Krueger with a blackness deeper than any he'd ever known – silencing him forever.

Rupert Giles woke with a start. Running a hand over a sweaty brow he swore he'd never let the children talk him into eating pizza before bed ever again.

Willow

(set anytime after "Grave")

She hated frogs. She'd always hated frogs. So when the gigantic red and green striped frog appeared in front of her she did what she usually did. She screamed bloody murder. Of course, now she was a witch of some considerable power.

Willow raised her hands so that both palms faced the frog (icky, icky, icky) and chanted. Her eyes darkened and so did her hair. Wind picked up, tossing debris around the room (and really, how did the giant frog get into the Magic Box, anyway?), causing the frog to blink at her in surprised confusion (icky, icky, icky).

Freddy Krueger only had a few moments to wonder what was going on when a lightning bolt shot out of the girl's hands and slammed into him. His body shook and shuddered, then exploded into itty bitty (icky, icky, icky) red and green chunks.

Willow shuddered, magically waved all the bits and pieces out into the back lot and set it on fire to properly dispose of it. (Icky, icky, ick!)

Xander

(set anytime after "Restless")

He was being hunted. It wasn't a new thing, far from it. Xander was frequently hunted – being the token human in a supernatural fight meant that most of the monsters went for him first, seeing him as a weak link. Easy prey.

This time, though, Xander knew he was dreaming. That changed things a bit. Sadly, this wasn't knew either. There had been a few times when he'd been tracked and hunted through his dreams. Of course, here, on the dreamplane, he wasn't quite as helpless as most would imagine.

He strode out of the furnace room of the school's basement (that had blown up years ago) and out into a corridor. He could hear whoever or whatever it was stalking him, scraping something metallic, probably a knife or sword, along the cement walls. Xander cringed, not at the thought of being attacked, but at the noise. Yuck.

He tapped on a wall and threw a smirk over his shoulder as the wall opened. He stepped through, thoroughly expecting the who or whatever to follow.

Freddy Krueger followed the boy down the corridor, surprised when the teen opened a door in the wall. This one knew he was dreaming. "This'll be fun!"

Stepping through the door, he blinked at the bright sun that shown down upon a grassy plain. Nearby, leaning against one of the few trees, the boy stared at him with critical eyes. "On a scale of one to ten, I'll give you a seven for creepiness – your appearance and clothes are enough to scare just about anyone – a four on execution and a two on research."

"What?"

The boy smirked, SMIRKED!,at him and waved a hand at his surroundings. "This is my brain. This is my brain after numerous possessions and mergings. And they don't like you. Any questions?"

Turning, Krueger noticed several figures appearing around him. A large hyena laughed cruelly, a soldier sneered, a younger version of the teen smiled, but his teeth were elongated and his eyes yellow, some weird fish creature stared at him hungrily, an odd person that looked part male and part female stared at him with hatred, and a girl covered in ash and blood snarled ferally at him.

Knives ready, he tried to manipulate the environment, only to have all the beings snicker. The boy shook his head. "My dream. My rules. Bye, Mr. Scar face." And the others descended upon him in a wave. When they were done, not even a scrap of clothing remained to prove he had been there, and the beings faded back to their proper places within the psyche.

Xander rolled over in his sleep, his smile slightly feral.

End.

11/29/08