Xander was falling. It was night, and he was falling.

'Crap, double crap, triple crap, quadruple crap, quintuple crap.' He thought. He wasn't sure where he was or how he had gotten here, but he was definitely falling. He kind of figured that the heart-wrenching sensation of the fall would eventually go away, but right now? Not so much. The last thing he remembered was... was THAT COSTUME. The one Cordelia had made him wear after he'd lost their bet. The one that was currently really uncomfortably tight around his chest and butt. He'd been out chaperoning a bunch of kids, and trying not to feel miserable in his blonde wig and white costume with red cape, a shadow passed over his vision, and then he was here.

Falling.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, too. The wind took his voice before it could reach his ears. Below, a cityscape was rushing up to meet him with uncomfortable speed.

He could not quite stop the choked giggle that escaped him, cutting off his scream, when he realized that he was falling towards the island of Manhattan, though he didn't remember there being a big skyscraper with the number four on each side at the top.

The street grew ever closer, and Xander did the only thing he could think of: he prayed. 'God, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Vishnu, Buddha, hell, I'd take CROM at this point... I could really use some help here!'

He had time to see the 42nd and Madison street signs plus the shocked expressions on the faces of pedestrians right before he hit the ground.

A New World in my View
by P.H. Wise
A BtVS Crossover Fanfic

Chapter 01: New Girl in Town

Disclaimer: The DC Universe and its associated characters is the property of DC comics. The Marvel Universe and its associated characters is the property of Marvel Comics. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Joss Whedon's baby. I am none of these people. This story is an answer to Challenge 6364: Supergirl Xander.

"Who's the hottie?" The voice belonged to Johnny Storm - blue hair, blonde eyes ... Wait, reverse those. His gaze lingered on the young woman lying unconscious on the medical bed beneath a host of scanning arrays in the Four Freedoms Plaza's sickbay.

"We don't know," Sue replied. Sister to Johnny, wife to the other man in the room - Reed Richards, who was currently hard at work operating the medical scanners.

Johnny let the door shut behind him as he crossed the smooth white floor that separated him from the hottie on the bed. Holographic screens floated all around her, some of them semi-solid, and responding to the touch of Reed's elongated limbs, stretched from one side of the bed to another. He looked down at the girl.

"God damn," he murmured. There's really no other way to say it: the girl was stacked. And considering the shredded state of her clothing, not to mention the skimpy nature of said clothing to begin with, there was no hiding from her charms. Her obviously developed musculature (and six pack abs) were a little weird when paired with her other endowments, but Johnny wasn't complaining. Young, too - Johnny'd put her age at 18 at most. Gorgeous. Almost boyishly short blonde hair. Flawless skin. Clad in the remains of a white leotard with very hgh cut leg holes, a red cape that had seen better days, a red belt, blue gloves and boots. ... None of it fit her very well. "What do we know?" he asked.

"The young woman fell from the sky above Manhattan Island approximately twenty minutes ago," Reed replied, not looking up from his work. "She landed on the pavement traveling at terminal velocity, and she left a crater at the site of impact six feet deep. She has three broken ribs, extensive bruising, and a few nasty scrapes to show for it."

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Is she a mutant?"

Sue and Reed exchanged looks. "Not as such," Reed said, followed immediately by Sue saying, "She's not human."

"Looks pretty human to me."

"How much would you say she weighs, Johnny?"

Johnny considered the girl once more, this time with an evaluating eye rather than an appreciative one. ... well, slightly less appreciative. Well... evaluating, anyways. She was maybe 5'11. Well muscled in spite of her large bosom. "180, maybe 200 pounds tops?"

"Five hundred and ten, actually."

Johnny looked surprised at that. "... Damn. Guess that explains the damage to the street."

"In part," Reed replied.

"So," Johnny said, "Random not-human girl falls from the sky above New York, survives the fall, and just happens to land in our front yard?"

Sue shrugged, and looked to Reed. "What do your measurements show?" she asked.

"... Double D, at least."

Reed and Sue gave Johnny a look.

"What? You give me a line like that, and you expect me not to take it? I'm only human."

The girl let out a faint groan, drawing the attention of the three heroes.

"She's waking up," Reed said.

Sunnydale High

"Haven't you ever wondered what you'll be when you grow up?" Cordelia asked.

Xander shrugged. "I always figured I'd just be Xander, and let the rest take care of itself."

"That's no reason to avoid career week," Cordelia replied. "Come on. They've already posted the results."

Something about the career fair made him feel downright uneasy. ... wasn't it not supposed to be happening for another couple of weeks? He was pretty sure that's what the school calendar said, anyways. "What do you care, anyways?" he asked. But Cordelia gave him a look that said she wasn't going to have any of it, and his resistance faded in the face of it. He let her drag him over to the bulletin board, and watched bemusedly as she examined her own listing.

"Oh, here I am," Cordelia said. "'Personal shopper or motivational speaker.' Neato!"

"Motivational speaker?" Xander asked, sarcasm thick in his voice, "On what? Ten ways to a more annoying you?"

Cordelia glared, and then paged through the H-K list to find Xander's result. "And what about you? You're..." she broke out into giggles. "Oh. Oh wow."

"What?" Xander rushed over to the board to examine his place on the list. "What?"

Xander Harris. Superheroine.

...

Wait, WHAT?

He was still staring in shock at the listing when the world began to blur around him. He felt as though his head were wrapped in a wet towel, and everything grew painfully bright...

Four Freedoms' Tower

Waking up was not the most pleasant experience Xander Harris had ever had. His head throbbed - his whole body throbbed, actually - and the light was almost physically painful to look at. He tried to lift an arm, to rub his eyes, but his arm felt like it was made of lead. "Ugh..." he moaned.

Slowly, the world came into focus. There were shapes now, and not just painful light and colour. His body felt... different. Weird. There was a weight on his chest that hadn't been there before. His thoughts were fuzzy. Weirdly out of focus.

And then he looked down and saw his own chest. Or rather, her own chest. She stared down at her own ample bosom for a long moment with a look of complete incomprehension. Then a quick check with the fingers revealed that she was in fact naked under the blanket that covered her from the waist down, and that yes, she was missing a particular part of her anatomy between her legs. Someone was speaking, but she couldn't make out the words. All the blood felt like it was rushing away from her head.

All things considered, Xander took the situation rather well: she fainted.

Waking up the second time was easier. No slow process this, but the flick of a switch. One moment unconscious, the next, awake.

She was still lying on a cold bed, a blanket still covering her from the waist down. The lights were dimmer now, and a woman with long blonde hair was looking down at her, smiling compassionately. "Hey," the woman said. "How do you feel?"

Xander had to swallow three times before she could manage to speak, "... like I got into a fight with a city bus... and lost..." Her voice was higher now - in the alto range - and there was a strength and authority in it that it had never held before, even now, even barely able to speak as she was. She wasn't sure she liked that.

The woman laughed. "More like a city street. Can you tell me your name? And how you wound up falling from the sky above New York city?"

Xander opened her mouth to reply. She knew who she was, certianly - her memories were clear right up until the point where hit the ground. ... but how DID she get here? And did she really want to give the name 'Xander Harris' in this situation? She'd never live it down. She shook her head, trying very hard to get a handle on the panic that was bubbling up from the pit of her stomach, "I'm sorry, I don't..."

The woman nodded. "Short term memory loss is sometimes associated with ... accidents. It should come back once you've recovered from the concussion."

Xander nodded faintly. "... Thanks," she managed. A pause. "Am I in the hospital?"

The woman shook her head. "You're inside Four Freedoms' Plaza. When you crashed just outside, well..." she shrugged. "I'm Sue. Sue Richards. We've been tending to your injuries."

"Who's we?"

"Besides myself? Reed, my husband, my brother Johnny, and Ben."

"... Huh."

Sue raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of the Fantastic Four?" she asked.

"I've heard of the Magnificent Seven? ... which I'm guessing is totally not the same thing."

"Guess you're not from around here." Sue laid out a pair of of jeans and a black tanktop - both in her sizes, followed by a bra and panties. "We're going to ask that you stay here in the medical bay until Reed thinks you're well enough to walk around. He'll be in shortly - we decided that it would be better not to expose you to too many different faces all at once. Or at least not until you're dressed. Do you need help getting dressed?"

Xander's face burned with embarrassment at that, and while she had no idea how to put on a bra, she shook her head. "No thanks."

"I'll just be outside, then. If you need anything, call out and we'll hear you."

A moment later, the door opened with a hiss, and Sue stepped out of the room, the door closing behind her shortly afterwards.

Xander sat up and looked around at the medical bay, still in shock, but now desperately trying to come up with some sort of story to tell these people. ... Well, some sort of story OTHER than the truth: telling people about the Hellmouth and Halloween and all the rest, besides being really embarrassing, would probably not cement her position as a member of the 'being sane' club in the eyes of her hosts.

She didn't even try to put on the bra, but she did manage the panties, the jeans, and the tank top - which she filled out generously. It hurt to put on the clothes. Her ribs. Sharp, burning pain every time she inhaled.

'OK, Xander,' she thought, 'Let's approach this rationally. You lost the bet, you dressed as Power Girl, something happened, and now... it's a dream. That has to be it. It's just a bad dream.' She pinched herself.

Nothing.

'Right. Not a dream. You've actually been transformed into a girl, you're injured, and you're stuck in New York until you can find a way to get home and hopefully to reverse this transformation without anyone finding out that it happened. ... can this get any worse?'

No sooner had she thought it than it did: Xander Harris, newly female, really needed to pee.

It didn't take long to find the restroom - unisex, thank Crom - and after she'd relieved herself, she took a moment to consider her reflection in the mirror. ... and immediately recognized the person looking back: Power Girl.

She'd been turned into Power Girl.

Staring at her own reflection, Xander couldn't help but drool.

Ethan's Halloween Supply, Sunnydale
Three Hours Ago

"It's come as you aren't night," Buffy told Willow as she led the other girl through the costume shop's racks. A new store. 'Ethan's. "The perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions."

"Oh, I don't get wild," Willow replied, finding the whole idea a bit dubious. "Wild on me equals spaz."

"Don't underestimate yourself. You've got it in you."

Willow spotted Xander as he approached, smiled, and called out, "Hey Xander! What'd you get?" She gestured to the shopping bag he held.

A beat passed, and then Willow frowned. "... You're not really going through with that bet you made with Cordelia, are you?"

His face burning with shame, Xander opened the bag, revealing the Powergirl costume that lay within, complete with blonde wig. "Shoot me. Stuff me. Mount me." he muttered.

Buffy looked sympathetic. "Nobody really expects you..." She trailed off. "OK, nobody who isn't Cordelia really expects you to go through with it, Xander."

"A bet's a bet. A man doesn't go back on his word."

Buffy made a face. He was still sore about that whole 'violating the guy code' thing, it seemed. "Xander, I really am sorry about this morning."

"Trying to repress here, Buffy," he replied.

"Right." She put her chin on his shoulder and pouted. "Okay, then I promise, from now on I'll let you get pummeled."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Thank you," he said.

Four Freedoms' Tower

A knock on the door brought Xander out of her thoughts. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, now, bare feet dangling just above the cold floor. She looked up. "... Yeah?"

The door opened, and a man in a blue jumpsuit with white hair at his temples entered, followed closely by Sue. "How are you feeling?" Sue asked.

Xander met her gaze, smiled a little uncomfortably, and did NOT say the first thing that came to mind ('emasculated'), but took a moment to think about what to say, and then said, "Better. Still some pain, but better."

"Glad to hear it." Sue gestured to the man who had preceded her into the room. "This is Reed. Reed, this is..." she looked questioningly to Xander.

Xander said nothing, wracking her brain for some kind of response, finding none.

"Sue tells me you've been having some problems with your memory," Reed said. "Why don't you just tell us whatever you can?"

It came to her as a flash of inspiration: a name she could use while she was stuck in this body that would never be associated with her old one. A name that they wouldn't immediately know to the name of a fictional character - after all, Power Girl was pretty widely known as Kara Zor-L, and while she liked that one better, she didn't want to press her luck. It would be weird to be called by it, but Xander had dealt with weird before, and honestly? It was better than telling them the truth. "... Starr," she said. "My name is Karen Starr."

Sue looked a bit dubious, but Reed smiled, and if Xander couldn't tell if it was an amused smile or a polite smile, well... she wasn't going to stress over it. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Starr," Reed said.

"Right. I hate to cut this short, and I'm grateful and everything, but..." Xander looked a little embarrassed, and rubbed the back of her neck. "Can I use a phone?"

Reed and Sue exchanged glances.

"Who would you call, Ms. Starr?" Sue asked.

Xander couldn't quite suppress her discomfort. "... look, can you not call me 'Ms. Starr?'"

"Karen, then."

Xander looked at them both for a long moment. "I need to get in touch with a man named Rupert Giles," she said finally.

"I don't think that's going to happen," Reed said. "Not yet, anyways."

Xander's eyes narrowed. Were these people really going to try to keep her here? She hopped off the bed, ignoring the sudden searing pain in her chest, and landed on her feet with far more of a thud than her body had any right to produce. "Am I a prisoner?" she asked.

"No. But you are an unknown quantity."

"I haven't done anything wrong," Xander said.

"We scanned you while you were unconscious, Karen," Sue said. "We know that you're an extra-terrestrial."

Xander tried not to let the shock she felt show on her face. She knew that Power Girl was a Kryptonian, but the idea of herself as a Kryptonian hadn't connected emotionally before now. ... she was an alien. With Superman's powers! Immediately, she tried to use her X-Ray vision.

...

Nothing.

Damn. Were her eyes broken or something?

Reed nodded in agreement with his wife, unaware of what Xander was attempting. "You could have any number of bacteria or viruses in your system that would prove lethal - or at the very least problematic - to the general population. Until we're sure that releasing you wouldn't cause a pandemic or worse, we'd like you to remain here. We have the necessary resources to deal with anything you might be carrying. There are very few others who can say the same."

Xander made a face at that. She didn't much like the idea, and Sue picked up on it, following right on the heels of her husband's words with, "And besides, you haven't recovered from your injuries yet. No sense leaving when you shouldn't even be out of bed, is there?"

A twinge of pain from Xander's broken ribs sealed the deal. She sighed. "... All right, but I reserve the right to complain endlessly about being stuck in one room for however long it takes you to finish your tests."

Sue cracked a smile. "That sounds fair."

Her recovery was slow, and for the life of her, Xander couldn't figure out why. Didn't Power Girl normally heal really quickly? But here she was, a week into her extended stay at Four Freedoms' Plaza, still not allowed outside, and her ribs still hurt like hell, and her bruises had only just begun to fade. Granted, she was healing faster than a normal human, but still... it was annoying as hell.

A week.

She'd been a girl for a week. The idea still gave her the creeping horrors, and given the specific shape of this particular female body, it wasn't like she could just hide everything: she was reminded of her femaleness on an almost hourly basis. Sometimes she'd be fine for hours at a time, and then she'd feel her breasts shifting slightly when she moved, or just become painfully aware of the slight sway of her hips when she walked that she couldn't quite stop, or even just the way a fabric felt against her skin.

...

and then there was Johnny.

...

Oh boy, but there was Johnny.

"Evening, gorgeous," the soon-to-be object of Xander's irritation called out as Sue led her into a dining room where he, Reed and a ... big... rock thing in blue shorts? ... waited.

Xander stared.

"I know we can't all have supermodel good looks like me," the rock thing said, "But in some places starin' like that is considered rude."

Xander kept right on staring.

"Karen," Sue said, "This is Johnny," she indicated the blonde-haired, blue eyed young man, clad in the ever popular blue jumpsuit that seemed like it was all these people wore, "And that's Ben. Ben, Johnny, this is Karen Starr. She's going to be staying with us for a while."

"Pleasure's all mine," Ben said, and offered a hand.

"Pretty sure you're wrong," Johnny commented in a sotto voice.

Xander felt a stab of irritation pass through her, but refrained from giving Johnny the dirty look that he deserved - Sue was already taking care of that. Instead, she shook Ben's hand. "Nice to, er, meet you." She paused. "You're not demons, right?"

The Fantastic Four each looked at her in surprise.

"Do you deal with demons on a regular basis, Ms. Starr?" Reed asked.

Xander shook her head. "... Er, no," she lied poorly, and realized it almost immediately. "...by which I mean yes. Deal with. Demons, that is. There's dealing." And then she realized she was babbling almost as badly as Willow, and shut her mouth with an audible click.

Sue smiled an amused sort of smile. "No, we're not demons, Karen. We're human, just like everybody else." She paused, and then met Xander's gaze. "Well, almost everybody else."

"So you're the super-powered alien chick I keep hearing about?" Ben asked.

Xander sat down at the table. "... unless you've got more than one of us stashed away here?"

"Just you at the moment," Sue said.

"Heh," Ben said as he walked from the kitchen to put food on the table. "So what powers ya got?"

Xander actually had to think about that one. Did all of Power Girl's abilities carry over? ... She hadn't been able to fly, and she certainly wasn't healing as fast as she should if she really had Power Girl's powers, and her one attempt to use x-ray vision had totally failed. ... but she WAS way heavier than she should be, and she kept breaking things on accident. If she had to guess, she'd probably put her level of strength at Buffy level. But that was nowhere near what she was supposed to be capable of. "... I'm not sure, actually."

"Wanna find out?"

"That'll have to wait until some time when I'm not completely messed from kissing pavement at terminal velocity," Xander replied. "... Nine point eight meters per second per second may not be what it used to be, but I still don't recommend it."

It hadn't been so bad at first. Xander actually liked Ben, and Sue was cool, and Reed was... well, distant and scientific.

Johnny needed to learn to leave well enough alone. Getting hit on was creepy enough, but getting hit on almost constantly? ... She was beginning to consider solutions which involved violence.

At least she was going to be allowed access to a phone today. They'd done enough tests to be pretty sure that she wasn't carrying the next Ebola virus in her bloodstream, even if the needles they'd had to use to pierce her skin were truly the stuff of nightmares. Stupid ultra-dense cellular structure.

She was walking with Sue again, heading for some sort of communications room, though why they didn't just let her borrow a cell phone was beyond her. As she walked, she absently noted the treated windows. It was day time, but those windows weren't letting sunlight through. That made her frown. Why bother having windows if they didn't let sunlight through at all? Weird.

She stepped into the communications room, and Sue quickly directed her to sit down at a glowing futuristic terminal.

"That's your phone?" Xander asked.

Sue shrugged. "... Technically, no. But since you're not keyed into our network, this is what you can use."

Xander gave the setup a dubious look. "How do I...?"

"Place a call?" Sue reached over and manipulated the holographic screen for a few moments, brought up the phone menu, and then gestured to Xander. "There you are. Just hit 'end' when you're done." And she sat down at the seat next to Xander's.

Xander gave her an uncomfortable look. "... Er, look, could I maybe do this in private?"

Sue thought about that, nodded, stood up, and left the room. "Remember," she called as the door slid shut, "End when you're done."

Xander let out a breath. "... Right. OK." She typed in Giles' phone number on the holo-pad.

#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#

Xander frowned. She paused a moment, and then dialed Buffy's phone number.

#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#

Feeling a sense of rising panic, Xander typed in Willow's phone number, and when that didn't work, after wracking his brain for another number to try, went and dialed the number for Jessie's parents, too.

#The number you have dialed is not in service, or has been disconnected...#

Her own phone number.

#Hello?# The man's voice on the other end wasn't one she recognized.

"... Is this the Harris residence?" she asked.

#I'm sorry,# the man replied. #I think you have the wrong number.#

"Sue?" she called out. "Sue?"

The door opened, and Sue poked her head in. "Karen?"

"Can you do a search on the town of Sunnydale, California?"

Sue nodded, sitting down next to Xander and letting her fingers fly across the controls. A moment later, the results of the search came up on the screen: no matches.

Xander's eyes went wide. "... I think I'm not in Kansas anymore."

End Chapter 01

Author's Notes:

Yet Another Halloween fic. Oh dear.

I actually tend to dislike genderbent Xander stories, but I figure the best way to criticize previous executions of a concept is to write your own version of it. More to come.