The naked and the undead

"I have nothing to say to you right now, Slayer," said Missy. "My dispute is with the vampire Drusilla, not you. She knows something and she's not telling."

"And you're prepared to kill Cordelia in order to make her talk?" asked Buffy. "And you expect me to just stand by while all this happens?"

"It should be obvious even to a human like you that the woman Drusilla calls Cordelia isn't really Cordelia," said Missy. "She's a former adversary of yours named Marcie Ross."

"Yeah, right," said Buffy. "So you're in on the gag, too. Frankly, I've seen Marcie Ross -- or rather, I haven't seen Marcie Ross -- and I could pretty much tell if she was here right now. And she obviously isn't. And even if she were, you're still asking me to just stand by while you kill a human in cold blood. And that I just can't do."

"Very well," said Missy. "I'll stick with my original plan then. And look! Here comes the target of said plan."

Buffy turned in time to see a blonde girl clad in wet nineteenth-century underwear walking up to the church with her arms around a young naked girl who appeared to be about eighteen. A girl who looked like a younger version of --

"Drusilla!" cried Buffy.

"That's her name, please don't wear it out," said the blonde girl next to Drusilla the Younger. "And can you please get her some clothes? There should be some scattered about the church entrance."

"Hey, you're Rose!" cried Buffy.

"And you're Buffy," said future Rose. "We've met in the past -- er, your past. I'm sorry I don't have a dress to take off for you right now but you know, priorities. I had to go save my Mistress's younger self from jumping in the river."

"Wait!" exclaimed Buffy. "Drusilla is your Mistress now? What happened to Tara!"

"I don't quite remember," said future Rose. "I suspect it was one of those timey wimey things. Anyway, about those clothes..."

"You saved her!" cried Drusilla in a tone that Buffy never heard Drusilla use before. "How ever did you do it?"

"It wasn't easy," said future Rose. "She did put up a good fight. But then I told her that you were not the Ghost of Drusilla Yet to Come but rather the Ghost of Drusilla That Might Be and her entire attitude changed. It didn't hurt that I also told her that killing herself would give the Evil One the ultimate victory and then -- Hey! Wait a minute! What's Missy doing here? I thought she was destroyed."

"That's what you thought, Rose," said Missy. "But I can never be destroyed. And quite frankly, I owe you a world of pain for your pitiful attempts to do just that. In fact, I owe all of you a world of pain. And once I take down your Mistress Drusilla, there'll be no end to the things I will do to you all. Let's face it. By the time I'm through with all of you, the worst of your lives thus far will seem like cake and I am not a fan of easy dea -- Hey!"

And just like that, Missy shrunk. And shrunk. And grew brown hair over her rapidly changing body until there was nothing left of her save a pile of old clothes with a brown-haired rat in the center. A rat that tried to immediately scurry off into the darkness, only to have an empty cage dropped on top of it.

"Cool!" cried the voice of Amy Madison. "My spell really does work on non-humans."