The Secret Agent Slayer Series

Episode 4

This is a Doctor Who/Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossover (with a hint of War of the Worlds and The Tripods thrown in) forming the 4th part of my Secret Agent Slayer Series. This is the tenth Doctor as played by David Tennant during his solo adventures around the time prior to 'Planet of the Dead'.

Enjoy!

When an excited Time Lord lands his TARDIS right in the middle of an alien invasion of Sunnydale, he encounters the mythical Slayer, a race of time travelling alien nomads and a terrible virus. Can the Doctor and the Slayer save the day? Only time will tell…

BUFFY the VAMPIRE SLAYER

and the

Alien Tripods from Outer Space

Doctor Who? / 001

In 1877, the first police telephone appeared in Albany, New York followed in 1883 by call boxes across the States of the US. Glasgow saw the first British call box in 1891 and it was a red iron contraption with a gas-filled lantern atop but by 1925 the blue wooden rectangular boxes had reached England. There were 685 of these on the streets of London alone by '53 and now, in February 2003, in a small cliff-side alcove just off the beach of Sunnydale, California, one of these 1950's police boxes materialised in a swirl of sand and with the screeching of an alert siren as the Doctor landed on Earth.

Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, and Xander Harris, three of the four members of the elite Slay Team, along with Anya Jenkins the former demon, and Tara Maclay, were spending the day at the beach.

Last August had been a terrible time for the Scooby Gang as they'd lost Dawn. But it wasn't as simple as her dying. She'd been turned by a hominus nocturna and now she was vampire. Buffy had planned to find the expert in hominus nocturna – Blade – and get a cure for Dawn's virus, but 2 days after she'd captured her changed undead sister; Buffy had found her gone. She'd escaped and disappeared and Buffy had no idea where…

It had been a tough few months. The Watchers' Council had been kind enough to throw only light jobs their way since that time. But, for most of them, Buffy had stayed home. This was the first time they'd managed to get her out socialising in those months since. They knew it would be tough and slow. But they had to bring her back from the brink somehow. A fun trip to the beach on a cool but sunny February day seemed as good a way as any.

"Okay," said Xander on his camper stool, "if I light this barbecue will you promise me it's not gonna storm it down? I mean no flash floods of biblical proportions like last time."

Willow realised he was addressing her. "Hey, that wasn't me. That was nature heralding the arrival of the Prince of Darkness! Dracula's gone. The sky's clear." She opened her palms and beckoned. "So gimme some meat."

"Hear that?" he jibed. "Will wants sausage. Who woulda thunk."

The red-head threw their beach ball at him. "Don't be gross."

"Does Tara know?" Xander went on with a childish giggle. Tara couldn't resist the urge to smile. Even Buffy too.

He lit the small stove. "C'mon, let's get things cooking so I can kick your butts at volley ball. While Rupert's away the mice will play."

"Does anyone know what this meeting's about with the Council?" asked Tara. "London's a long way to go just for an update."

"I caught him on the phone to an English chick he knows," said Xander. "If you ask me, London's a long way to go just to get–" The ball hit him again.

"I hear we're swapping the beach of Sunnydale for Hawaii this summer," mentioned Tara.

Anya beamed and wrapped herself around Xander's arm. "I finally made him reserve the service and reception."

Willow looked at them with envy. "If you're getting married in Hawaii… where're you gonna have the honeymoon?"

"Paris," said Anya.

"Hawaii," corrected Xander.

"Paris."

"Paris is cold and soggy. Hawaii."

"Sorry I asked," Will gave a grimace. "How's the sausage coming?"

Xander took that as his escape route.

"Paris," Anya whispered.

A sudden loud and earth-shaking sonic boom drew their attention to the sky.

Something was falling to earth in a pillar of smoke and flame.

"Good God is that a meteor?" Xander shot up from his stool. "Good God did I just sound like Giles?"

Buffy stepped forward, a knot in her stomach. "It's not a meteor. Look… it's turning."

Tara watched. Buffy was right. "It's heading right for Breaker's Woods."

In an instant it was down and hidden behind the town. At first nothing happened, and then came the mighty bang of its impact and the shock wave. Xander's stove tipped over and spread hot coals across the sand.

Not one, not two, but three more sonic booms followed as more balls of fire blazed through the skies.

The Doctor stepped out of his TARDIS and into the mild sunshine. The beach, the ocean, the sun. Brilliant!

"Aw, this…is…beautiful." Then he checked his feet to find them sinking into the sand and groaned. "Aww, It's gonna get all in my shoes."

From far along the beach came the shrill screams of absolute terror.

A grin stretched out across his face from ear to ear. "Blimey. That didn't take long!"

The Doctor went running out across the seafront towards imminent danger. Marvellous!

The second ball of fire disappeared behind the townscape and joined the first out in Breaker's Woods. The third shot across the nearer Miller's Woods, skimming and burning the treetops, and crashed down somewhere beyond. The fourth and final falling inferno took a sweeping decent, circling over the town, falling against the cliffs and taking out a huge chunk of the rock edge before splashing out about a mile out into the Pacific.

The Scoobs looked to each other with open jaws, utterly speechless. What on earth… or, more to the point, what not on earth…?

Breaker's Woods was about a 45-minute drive from town and from that distant place came the first signal. A deep booming horn blow that shook the town.

Xander swallowed hard. "It's War of the Worlds…"

"Don't, Xander," Will beseeched, "You'll scare people."

A second horn rumbled out in those woods followed closely by a third from past Miller's forest. A moment later, the waters out in the ocean erupted in a geyser with a fourth booming call from under the seas. The town was in panic with people running and fleeing in their cars.

"I think people are already scared," Xander replied.

"Look!" Tara called, pointing to the sight of the first and second crash.

Rising like a giant from behind the distant tree line, a bronze domed tripod lifted into the air on hinged metal legs. A circular iris opened on its high dome and some kind of energy wave blasted out across the land.

The Tripods rose.

Then came the screams…

Xander grabbed a hold of his fiancée and pulled her close. "What the hell are they?"

"They're alien tripods. From outer space."

They turned to see a thin man in a loose blue suit and sneakers with a stylish rooster helm of brown hair. He sounded out of breath and British, though not as posh as Giles.

Tara directed a frown at him. "Alien?"

"If they're alien then obviously they're from outer space," Anya pointed out.

"Ah, but they really are from outer space," said the thin Brit. "They have no home world. Their Tripods have appeared all over time and the universe but never fixed in one place and never in the same place twice. They're nomads. The gypsy folk of the galaxies." They were giving him funny looks. "Well… that's my guess anyway."

They regarded him with comical bemusement and he loved it.

Anya was the first to speak up. "Why would aliens come to Sunnydale?"

"It's a Hellmouth, Sweetie," said Xander, "everything comes here."

She wasn't convinced. "Demons, ghosts and vampires – that makes sense. But aliens from outer space?"

"Maybe it's more of those Deceptathingys the Autobots told you about," Tara wondered.

Xander noticed Buffy's stake had found its way into her hand. "I don't think Mr Pointy's gonna do much good today," he noted.

The thin man's attention was now drawn to Buffy. "You have a stake? A wooden stake? Why do you have a wooden stake?"

Buffy fumbled, "Um… for the… tent… that we don't have…" She slipped the weapon back into her pants.

…Sunnydale…21st century…Hellmouth…demons and vampires…Autobots…wooden stake…

"Hang on a minute…" The odd cockerel-haired man pointed his finger at them and wiggled it about before settling on the short blonde with the sharp stake. "It can't be…no…it never is…it is! …You're Fluffy! Fluffy Summers! Fluffy the Vampire Slayer!"

Her eyes opened wide with surprise. "How do you know about that? Who are you? And it's Buffy. Not Fluffy."

"What? Really?" He ogled her, perplexed.

"Uh…yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"Oh, well, in that case, Wow! I can't believe you're really real. You're supposed to be Beowulf – a myth, a legend, a tall tale, just a story, well, not just any story – The Slayer Chronicles – up there with Tolkien's Ring mythology and, what was the other one? Harry Potty!"

"I think you mean Harry Potter," Willow corrected.

"Right. So… you really saved the world with a pencil crayon? And the whole angst-ridden love arc with Angel? The girls love that one. Brought a tear to my eye, if I'm honest. Doomed love… aaahhh," he sighed. "Oh, wait, what year are we at again? Twenty-oh-three?…So, you defeated evil Baron Samedi already with the dragon scale knife of Osiris in the shocking 'You Only Die Twice' chronicle?"

"How do you know–?"

"What about the cross-dimensional rift and the battle with the Cuban and the mist and the tentacles? Did that happen yet? Those tentacles…" He shivered and saw their faces. "Oh, I'm too early. That's a great one. And how do I know? The famous Watchers' Diaries by Ripper Giles, of course. You haven't heard of them? Of course you haven't! But, in about three and a half thousand years when archaeologists discover the diaries of Rupert Giles, pretty much everyone will. No one ever imagined the stories were true, though! Strange… Fluffy the Vampire Slayer and the Alien Tripods from Outer Space… don't think I've heard of that one."

"It's Buffy!"

"Is it? The manuscripts must have suffered ink degradation over the millennia. Though his handwriting was fairly illegible. Or, quite possibly, an editorial typo. These things happen. I once found my way into a diary as 'A' doctor. Can you believe that? 'A doctor', like I'm just any old dog's body."

"What are you talking about?"

He regarded them incongruously. "Quite right, I am rambling, I do tend to ramble. But, but, it's just… ancient nomadic alien tripods… and Fluffy Summers in the flesh… I am honoured."

"For the last time, my name is Buffy."

"Right. Sorry. Buffy. …Are you sure?"

"Who are you?"

"Actually it's who I am. I'm the Doctor." He put out a gangly hand but no one took it.

"Doctor who?"

"Now you're getting it. Come on!" And off he went across the beach.

DISCLAIMER:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER is a Registered Trademark of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

DOCTOR WHO is property of the BBC.