Ship of the Line: Pioneer's Dawn

Disclaimer: Unfortunately I still do not own these characters so please continue to keep the lawyers firmly on their leash.

Edit 31/01/15: I've altered the final part of the chapter as I had accidentally written myself into something of a corner with the original which was making it difficult to get started on chapter eight of this fic. So I've changed things a little bit, I strongly advise all my readers to read the new ending otherwise the new chapter when its ready will not make a huge amount of sense.

Chapter Seven

Stargate Command

A Few Minutes Earlier

Gasps of mixed shock and awe filled the control room as the overhead monitors showed the SDF-3's main cannons fire, unleashing two coruscating beams of radiant energy whose destructive power was almost beyond comprehension. One of the two massive Goa'uld warships was hit almost immediately, the beam completely ignoring the energy shields surrounding the ship to cut into, then through the very centre of the vessel, shooting out the other side amid an explosion of debris. For a moment out of time the Goa'uld ship remained intact, great glowing rips and tears appearing in its hull, then with a breath-taking suddenness the whole thing erupted into a truly titanic explosion.

The blast was enormous, far outshining the distant light of the sun. The screens washed with heavy static and the EMP generated by the blast assaulted, and very nearly fried, the hardened electronics of the recording spy satellite. The static cleared, just in time for the watching SGC personnel to see the massive beams from the SDF-3 vanish. One of the enemy ships remained, but it was far from intact as it spun away, trailing a massive slick of debris and venting atmosphere from a truly enormous gash ripped in its hull – presumably it had managed to avoid being hit directly, hence why it hadn't been blown to irradiated dust like the other ship had, but had only been grazed by the beam. Which, in testament to the sheer power of the alien weapon, had still been more than enough to thoroughly mission kill the ship.

"Unbelievable," General Hammond breathed, awed despite himself by that display of sheer power as it was beyond anything he had ever seen in his decades of service to the United States as a member of her Air Force. Even the spectacle of seeing the Stargate open for the first time paled into insignificance in comparison. Yet at the same time he couldn't help but be concerned both for professional and private reasons.

Professionally because there was no way that the destruction of the Goa'uld warships – though something to be welcomed as it meant they were safe from orbital annihilation, at least for now – could have been missed. Both the brilliant yellow-white meters thick lances of the energy beams and the flash of the one ships detonation would have been clearly visible from the surface over much of the hemisphere. Which meant that the secret about aliens being real, and hostile to life on Earth, was well and truly out now. There couldn't really be any chance of putting that particular genie back in the bottle.

And he had to admit that part of him wondered if that was truly a bad thing.

The System Lords and their armies of fanatically loyal Jaffa were a threat to everyone, every nation on the planet not just the United States of America. While politically it would be one hell of a headache, which was why he was thankful he wouldn't be the one dealing with it, from a military standpoint having all the collective resources of the worlds armed forces to throw at the Goa'uld would make battling them a hell of a lot easier if still quite an uphill struggle given the Goa'uld had a major advantage in terms of both manpower and technology level. Though the latter could probably be rendered moot if whoever's aboard the Pioneer shares her technology with us, he thought, and isn't that weird to think about. Robotechnology being a real science, a real technology and not just something from Japanese anime; powerful science and technology at that going on that very impressive fireworks display.

On a private note though he was worried for the members of his flagship team. Assuming they hadn't been captured and killed, or worse, whenever they'd gated to the Goa'uld staging area they would have likely been aboard one of those two ships. Aboard and knowing Jack trying to figure out a way of either capturing – strictly for research and reverse engineering of course, nothing whatsoever to do with the other man's child-like desire for 'big honking space guns' – or destroying them. Given what had just happened then it was very possible that all four members of SG-1 were now either dead or dying; blown to fiery dust with the first ship or suffocating as the second ship lost atmosphere through its monster of a hull breach. The fact that he didn't know there fate, and possibly might never know, was torturous in the extreme. And what made it worse was he had no way of finding out their fate either way.

A flicker of light on the screen caught his attention. What the-? he thought giving the screen his full attention again, just in time to see what looked like two balls of golden light streak across the distance between the SDF-3 and the tumbling remains of the last Goa'uld ship. He wondered if the streaks were weapons fire – possibly some kind of high velocity railgun rounds – which the Pioneer's crew were using to finish off the Goa'uld, but didn't want to waste the energy needed to blow the ship to bits with their standard energy weapons. The thought died when the two streaks of light disappeared through the hull of the dying warship, without causing any explosion at all or any sign that they'd even hit it. Obviously they weren't weapons but something else entirely, though what that could be he had no idea but then it had been a very long time since he'd last watched Robotech.

"Sir," Sergeant Harriman said abruptly.

"Yes," George asked looking at the long suffering master sergeant who oversaw the operation of the gate itself.

"The President is on the line for you, sir," Walter replied, before grimacing. "Also Lieutenant Colonel Samuels is waiting in your office for you."

George resisted, just, the impulse to groan in annoyance at that particular bit of news. He hadn't yet forgiven his former second in command, who'd left for a post at the Pentagon shortly after the SGC was brought back online in the wake of Apophis's raid, for siding with Senator Kinsey when the good Senator had come to the base to review the program. Review and ultimately decide that the gate was both too big a risk, and not producing anything to justify its continued use and order there shutdown. While Bert Samuels had never made a secret of the fact that he thought the gate was dangerous and should be sealed immediately, the fact that he'd – by siding with Kinsey – to all intents and purposes spat on all the hard work and sacrifices the SG teams had made over the last year had been an unforgiveable betrayal as far as he – and everyone else assigned to the SGC – was concerned. Thus he wasn't pleased to hear that the man had arrived here at this time as he didn't doubt that Kinsey – or one of the man's stooges at the Pentagon – were behind it.

"Understood," he said at last resigned to dealing with Samuels as well as President Clinton who he knew wasn't a fool and would be well aware that what had happened had changed the world. As well as making keeping their little secret to all intents and purposes impossible. "I'll take the call in my office."

"Yes, Sir," Walter acknowledged.

With a silent sigh of resignation George left the control room, climbing the stairs to the level above which was dominated by the briefing room and his own office. Standing outside his office, and looking more than a little gobsmacked about something, was Samuels looking resplendent in his dress blues. It was obvious by looking at him that Samuels mind was elsewhere and following his gaze George notice it was focused on one of the monitors sometimes used in briefings. A monitor that was currently showing the same satellite feed that he himself had been watching a few moments earlier.

"Colonel Samuels," he said in greeting and inwardly smirked when the younger man visibly jumped with surprise. "Are you alright?"

"General Hammond. I'm fine sir," Samuels replied visibly trying to pull himself together.

"Is there a problem, Colonel?" George asked keeping his features composed with difficulty as part of him wanted to make a truly Jack O'Neill worthy smirk at seeing the normally very arrogant and cocky Samuels looking so shell shocked.

"No… no problem," Samuels replied, "it's just I can't believe that's," he gestured at the monitor and the image of the SDF-3 being displayed on the screen, "real."

"You and me both, Colonel," George admitted, "after all it's not every day that a fictional ship from Japanese animation is shown to be real, and not only real but for said ship to save us from a potentially devastating Goa'uld attack."

"Indeed sir," Samuels agreed. We would have beaten the Goa'uld ourselves if they, whoever they are, hadn't intervened, he thought, our new Goa'uld Buster missiles would have been more than capable of shooting those warships out of the sky, despite their shields. And maybe then we'd have had a chance of keeping the secret of the gate under wraps. Even if it did mean cancelling the shutdown order on the SGC in order to continue the war, and get some new tech and weapons for ourselves. But no this happened… ugh glad I don't have to deal with the political fallout. He inwardly smirked as he imagined Senator Kinsey's reaction to all this, despite what some people in the Pentagon – and no doubt here at the SGC – believed he actually didn't much care for the slimy politician. He'd just been a means to an end.

"Come along, Colonel. The President is waiting to speak with me, we can both guess what about."

"Indeed we can, sir."

Without further ado George walked past the younger Air Force officer and made his way into his office, footsteps behind him letting him know the other man was following. Within moments George was around the far side of his desk before picking up the constantly ringing red phone before bringing it to his ear.

"Yes Mr President?"

Bridge

SDF-3 Pioneer

That Same Time

Xander Harris blinked and looked around in confusion as, with a suddenness that was truly breath-taking, he suddenly found herself back into control of his body. What! What happened? he thought, before shivering as the memories played before his eyes. Being down in Sunnydale acting as escort for an increasing sugar high bunch of rug rats, feeling an odd tingle as something invisible but powerful washed over him, suddenly ceasing to be Xander Harris but instead becoming Rick Hunter. And everything that had happened since then.

He could only think of one explanation for what had happened. Magic. Ugh I hate magic, he thought before mentally shaking himself and paid attention to his surroundings. Somehow he wasn't surprised to find himself sitting at a computer station on the bridge of a spaceship that both sounded and felt real… completely, totally and somewhat frighteningly real. What was shocking was that he understood everything the console screens were telling him, all the complex graphics and data being displayed in a format that was completely different to the Windows format he was used to made perfect sense to him. Seemingly on autopilot he found his hands dancing across the console, checking to make sure the ships reflex cannons had fully secured from the firing sequence, checking to make sure the excesses charges absorbed by the omni-directional barriers capacitors were being dissipated properly by the automatic systems, deactivating the pinpoint barriers and powering down the rest of the ships numerous weapons systems now that the danger appeared to have past.

"Harris what the hell?" a male voice said from somewhere off to the right of him, a voice that touched the echo left in him by the hyena possession last year. Finishing what he was doing, somehow knowing it was important that he not leave it unfinished, Xander turned in the direction the voice had come from.

To see Tor Hauer looking back at him, face a mask of bafflement and confusion. It wasn't quite the face he remembered, Tor's features had somehow changed becoming more chiselled, more classically handsome than before. The formerly blond member of the Pack was pulling at his hair frantically, hair that had changed both in colour and length from the short blond spikes he'd favoured since junior high. His hair instead was now long, tied back in a ponytail with a single quiff hanging down on his forehead. It was also a dark blue in colour. With a shocked jolt he realised that it had previously been a wig that the other teen had been wearing to appear more like Scott Bernard, but which had now become his real hair.

Without even thinking about it his own hand shot up. To find that his own wig had become real hair as well. Great, he thought with a mental sigh, I wonder if there have been any other permanent changes due to whatever spell was cast on us. And if I ever find out who cast it I'm going to shove a battloids gun pod up where the sun doesn't shine and pull the trigger.

"My guess is we were the victims of some kind of spell," he answered at last.

Tor groaned at that, recalling his last experience with magic. Being possessed by a primal hyena spirit, eating the football team's mascot raw and then killing and eating Principal Flutie, all the result of getting caught up in someone else's primal magic spell, was not something you forgot. Much as he wished he could forget it as he could do without those nightmares thank you very much, nightmares that had seen his friend Kyle descend into drugs and alcoholism in an attempt to escape them and the emotions that came with them, especially the guilt. Not that he had it had simply resulted in his parents removing him from school and chucking him into an expensive detox programme somewhere in Oregon – which from what he'd heard wasn't going well. Yet here he was again, caught up in a spell. Though at least this time he hadn't been turned into a hyena in human form, instead turned into a REF soldier with memories of growing up aboard a gigantic colony ship orbiting Tirol, attending the Robotech Academy on said planet and eventually coming to Earth with the goal of booting some Invid squatters off his ancestral homeworld.

"Great," he muttered, before his eyes widened as he remembered persuading Heidi to dress up in a Robotech costume as well as him. Looking around he saw her slumped at his feet unconscious but breathing. "Heidi," he said aloud in alarm, reaching out to feel for a pulse. There was one but it felt strange, not like the normal pulsing rhythm of a human heartbeat more like a continuous rushing of a fluid. She felt warmer than normal and to that little bit of the hyena that had stayed in him she felt really different, didn't feel like she was human anymore.

Blue eyes widened as a horrible thought occurred to him. Heidi had dressed up as Marlene/Ariel a human-form Invid. Was she still an Invid? Was that why she didn't exactly feel like a human anymore to the remains of the animal within him? Oh God I hope not, he thought, how are we going to deal with it if she is still an Invid? What if the government find out! They'll take her away and do all sorts of nasty experiments to her. Even discounting that how will we both cope with it….

A hand abruptly landing on the armour encasing his shoulder, armour that from the clang it made was definitely still a titanium nanolaminate-ceramiplast alloy instead of the moulded plastic it had been when he'd bought the costume from Ethan's, brought him out of his increasingly frenzied thoughts. He looked up to find himself looking into Xander's face, the other man – as Xander looked to have been somehow aged to look to be in his mid to late twenties – looking as concerned as he was feeling but for him as well as Heidi. He almost reached up to brush the hand away, after the possession ended Harris hadn't exactly spent much time with him or the others – which now he thought about it was probably Willow and Buffy's doing – who'd been affected by the primal spell. But he didn't as the part of him that still thought of Xander Harris as Alpha, as both leader and a source of comfort and safety, stopped him, instead he rested he put one of his own hands on Harris' accepting the offer of silent support feeling a strange sense of peace in doing so along with a sense that whatever happened it would be alright in the end.

For his part Xander blinked as he offered support and comfort to Tor, who he could tell was deeply worried and troubled by what had likely happened to Heidi Barrie as a result of whatever spell had overtaken them all. It didn't show on his face but he just knew that he was and before he'd even realised it he'd stood up, crossed the bridge and put a hand on the other teen – no man as Tor didn't exactly look like a teenager anymore but more like someone in his early to mid-twenties – armour-encased shoulder. He hadn't thought about doing it he'd just done it and feeling Tor put his own hand on his in response he found it felt right. Guess there is still some of the hyena left in him as well as it is in me, he thought, damn I should have talked to them instead of trying to pretend I didn't remember anything for the sake of Buffy and Willow. Maybe we would have been able to help each other through what happened then. Screw it whatever Buffy and Willow say I'm going to be there for Tor, Heidi and Rhonda from now on as I should have been all along. Maybe if I had been Kyle wouldn't have fallen into alcohol and drugs after the possession. I've been a bad Alpha for too long, time to correct that.

A soft groan from the direction of the command chair caught his attention and both of them turned to look. Just in time to see Buffy open her eyes, blink in confusion before shooting up to her feet with Slayer enhanced speed eyes scanning for threats in the same way they did when hunting vampires down in one of the many graveyards there were in Sunnydale. It was obvious that Buffy had been changed in the same way they had, she was a good six or seven inches taller than before and like them appeared to have been aged till she appeared to be in her twenties her physique had also changed while as lithe as ever she'd lost the small build that had led to so many vampires and demons underestimating her capabilities as a Slayer – which was usually the last mistake said vamp or demon ever made before getting dusted, vanquished or otherwise cut to ribbons by the pissed off Slayer – instead having gained the more robust frame of Lisa Hayes.

"Xander," Buffy said relaxing as she realised there was no threat present here, wherever here was, before turning her attention to her best male friend… and frowning. "What the hell has happened to you?" she asked eyeing him noticing how not only had he somehow aged almost a decade but – from the way he was filling out the uniform – had put on quite a lot of muscle as well. She felt her old attraction to him, which she'd put aside in favour of Angel as Willow wanted Xander though never seemed to be able to muster the courage to tell him let alone ask him out, stir and be reinforced by something within her.

"Same thing that's happened to you, Buff," Xander replied prompting Buffy to look down and emit a cry of surprise before repeatedly feeling at herself to confirm what she saw was real.

"What, what's happened?" she asked.

"Best guess a spell or some type," Xander answered glancing at the people sprawled out on the floor. He remember Ariel and Sera – who he now recognised as Heidi Barrie and Gwen Ditchik, one of Cordelia's little gaggle of sycophants, respectively – teleporting over to the one alien ship that had survived their reflex cannon attack and rescuing them, remembered Ariel/Heidi psionically attacking and killing the parasitic alien life form controlling the Egyptian-looking boy in ornate robes. What are we going to do about them, he thought.

Buffy groaned at his answer. "Great and Giles said Halloween is supposed to be a dead for the undead and other supernatural nastiness," she moaned aloud. She almost wanted to rage at what had happened but found she couldn't, something within her that felt like an echo of Lisa was saying she had far more important things to do now.

A few more groans around the bridge caught the attention of the three of them. Looking around they saw that the rest of those affected by the spell were recovering – well with the exception of Heidi and Gwen who remained unconscious as their minds adapted to being in bodies that in everything but appearance weren't even remotely human – opening eyes and looking around in shock and confusion.

Typically Willow, still sitting at the communications station, started babbling at such a high speed that not even Xander – who could normally understand most patented Willow-babble – could understand what she was saying. Buffy immediately moved over to her best female friend and put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her down. "Breath, Willow," Buffy said with Slayer firmness. "You're not going to do yourself much good if you pass out from oxygen deprivation." I can't believe I just said that, she thought in shock, since when do I use terms like oxygen deprivation? Gah this bit of Lisa left inside me by whatever spell was cast on us is going to take some getting used to. Which reminds me when I find however cast this spell I'm so going to slay them.

Willow stopped babbling, closed her eyes for a moment and took a few deep breaths to calm and settle herself unknowingly tapping into something Minmei had learned to do before going on stage to perform, before opening her eyes. "Buffy what happened," she asked confused as she remembered turning into Minmei, meeting up with Xander/Rick who'd used a laser to save her from a werewolf of all things, coming up to this ship and everything that had happened since then.

"I would like to know that as well," Larry Blaisdell said moving away from the console where he remembered working. Being somehow turned into Roy Fokker had been a downright freaky experience even by the weird standards of Sunnydale High.

"Obviously a spell of some sort," Amy replied, "though I'm not sure what kind of spell could have such an effect and create this ship out of nothing. It would have to be seriously powerful though."

"Magic! Yeah right pull the other one, Amy," Larry answered.

"How else do you explain it then," Buffy asked, "magic's real."

"And if you want proof," Amy added holding up a hand and muttering a spell under her breath, she immediately felt the magic flow through her though it felt different to before, flowing more easily for some reason. With a flash a whirling ball of white flame-like energy appeared hovering a centimetre above the surface of her palm.

"You know magic too?" Jonathan Levinson asked gaping at Amy before she extinguished the fireball, he knew it was her from her voice as she didn't quite look the same anymore.

"You know magic, Jono," Xander asked looking at the geek he, Willow and Jesse had used to sometimes hang around with before Buffy had come to Sunnydale and Jesse got turned.

"A little. Small illusions mostly," Jonathan answered before frowning at Xander. "Why aren't you freaking out about this, Xander?"

"Believe me part of me wants to," Xander admitted, "but I've known magic is real for a while now. Ever since just after the Buffster here," he gestured to Buffy, "came to town." And this is not the first time I've been caught in a spell, he thought with a glance at Tor and the still unconscious Heidi. I hope she's going to be alright especially if she's still an Invid.

"Is magic how you were able to stop me earlier today," Larry asked addressing Buffy as he recalled her stopping him picking on Harris.

"Not quite but close," Buffy replied, before sighing. "Okay cards on the table here people we've all obviously gotten caught up in somebody else's spell – and believe me I'll slay whoever's behind it when I find them – and we're now on a previously fictional warship orbiting Earth. We also just destroyed two hostile alien warships, we need each other if we're to survive now."

"Slay," Jonathan muttered before his now blue eyes widened as he recalled something he'd read in one of the occult books that had appeared in the library of Sunnydale High when Rupert Giles had taken over as school librarian. "Oh my God, you're the Slayer."

"You know about the Slayer," Buffy asked.

"Ugh what's a Slayer," Scott Hope asked from just behind Larry, his voice still recognisable though he'd seemingly picked up a strong German accent from somewhere.

"There's a whole spiel about it that's not important now," Buffy replied, the part of her that was still Lisa Hayes telling her to focus more on what was important in the here and now. "Suffice to say that as a result of being the Slayer I'm stronger than your average bear. But as I said that's not important now. What we need to decide is a) what we're going to do with them," she gestured over her shoulder at the four people in military black clothes sprawled out of the deck, "and b) what do we do about this situation we're in. I assume everyone remembers what happened last night."

There were nods of affirmation from all round. "Okay," Buffy said with a sigh before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Damn this is so wiggy and look at me taking charge like this, she thought, huh while it might be annoying in some ways I think I'm going to like all this stuff left in my head.

"First I suggest we get this lot to sickbay and rig them up to ventilators as they all probably inhaled quite a bit of toxic smoke before Ariel and Sera… I mean Heidi and Gwen got them off that second warship," Xander suggested.

"We prevented an invasion… cool," Jonathan said grinning, "oh man Andrew and Warren are going to be so jealous."

"I don't think we can really go back to Sunnydale High, Jono," Xander pointed out, "I mean we hardly look like we all did just this afternoon."

Jono blinked and looked down. Immediately noticing that in addition to being a few inches taller than he'd been earlier he'd put on quite a bit of muscle that filled out the uniform he was wearing quite well. Thinking about it he guessed his own face will have changed a bit as well, just like how Xander while still clearly Xander looked a bit more like Rick and how from the look of her Willow's skin had tanned till it looked Asian. "Point," he agreed looking up.

Before anyone else could speak a sharp bleeping alert sounded throughout the bridge. "What's that," Buffy asked.

Larry turned around and glanced back at the console he'd previously been sitting at, which was where the noise seemed to be coming from. A few knowledgeable taps of the controls silenced the alert and provided a reason for it having sounded in the first place. "A small ships just leaving the wreckage of the second warship," he said sounding both surprised by the fact that he could read and operate the console and the fact that someone else had apparently survived long enough on the wreck of the second alien warship to reach a smaller craft. Guess there is more than a bit of Roy left in me, he thought. "The craft is moving away from us and the wreck at about twenty percent of light speed, wait reading a power surge. There's some kind of hyperspatial vortex opening in front of the craft, its entering, it's gone. The vortex is closing."

"Can you tell what it was?" Buffy asked.

"I'm not sure the design was similar to the squadron of alien attack ships that bombed us before the capital ships arrived. Whatever it was it didn't seem to be armed. It could be the alien equivalent of a Star Goose just capable of interstellar travel."

"Whatever it was its concerning that it got away," Xander pointed out, "now whoever those warships belonged to will know about us… and how easily we destroyed them."

Silence greeted that response, with everyone exchanging looks of mutual concern. They all knew that he was right and now the aliens would know just what had thwarted their attempted attack on Earth. Though by the standards in all their memories just two warships was a truly pathetic attack/invasion force when compared to the dozens, hundreds and thousands of capital ships and mecha that made up the attack groups favoured by the Robotech races. Still none of them doubted that those two ships, sizeable even by Robotech standards, would have easily been able to wreck untold levels of destruction on Earth if they, or rather the people they'd been briefly transformed into, hadn't stopped them.

"So now what," Larry asked breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen upon the bridge. None of them knew how to answer that particular question. After all what did you do if you found yourself on the bridge of a gigantic warship that until a few hours ago existed only on a tape buried in the vault at Harmony Gold? Especially after the fictional characters that you'd been briefly transformed into by some magic spell prevented a real life alien invasion of Earth? And to top it all off didn't exactly look the way you did just a few short hours ago?

"Now I think we have some decisions to make," Xander answered at last, "as I think it's obvious to all that whatever else we decide to do we simply can't go back to the way things were before. But first we should wait for Heidi and Gwen to wake up, they need to be involved in this to." Especially as neither feels human anymore, he thought, as with Tor the remnant of the Hyena inside of him let him know that neither girl was in anyway human anymore but were now Invid.

One by one everyone on the bridge nodded in agreement. However before anyone could speak a soft groan from the back of the bridge caught everyone's attention, turning in the direction the sound had come from they could see one of the black clad figures was beginning to stir. "One of our guests is regaining consciousness," Tor commented needlessly, hand drifting towards his holstered H-90 Gallant just in case the stirring individual proved hostile to them.

Xander smiled slightly in approval though he kept his gaze firmly focused on the stirring man, it was the grey haired one who looked to be roughly the same age as Giles. Whatever else we decide to do we're really going to have to have a word with Giles about all this, he thought, find out who exactly did this to us and why they didn't get the memo that Halloween is supposed to be a quiet on the supernatural nasty's front.

He was brought out of his thoughts as the figure groaned again before cool grey eyes flickered open and the man groaned more loudly, snapping them shut again, and holding a hand to his forehead. "Oh will someone tell the guy with the jackhammer to lay off," the stranger moaned, prompting a round of amused chuckles and looks from all of them.

The sound of muted chuckles penetrating the mental haze of pain enveloping the older man prompting both the hand to drop to his side and for his eyes to shoot open again. After blinking frantically for a few moments the stranger carefully studied them. He's sizing us up, Xander thought as he watched the other man notice how they were all armed.

"Howdy campers," the man said at last. "What's hanging?"

Authors Note: I realise Buffy and co might be acting a bit out of character for them but please bare in mind that their personalities have been merged with echoes of the personalities of the people they were transformed into by Ethan's spell as well as inheriting their memories, knowledge and skills.