Not much happened in terms of plot in this one, most of it is dealing with the bomb Calvin dropped in the episode before and Alex not knowing how to deal with it all. As all of this is gone into in by Jenni in her blow by blow recaps, I think I’ll leave it at that.

But to sum up:

• Calvin and Alex barely talk when they wake up in Calvin’s bed the next morning, having spent the night together.
• Alex gets busted leaving the house by Martha, Calvin’s sister.
• Megan tries to sweet talk a priest into giving her some holy water, and when that doesn’t work steals it instead.
• Darius is still recuperating (either in hospital or at home, I was a bit confused).
• Calvin tries to find Gina, and discovers that shes disappeared. The car she borrowed is found in a parking lot near the train station and he assumes that shes left town.
• Megan is oblivious to whats happened between Alex and Calvin, even when the three of them hang out at her house trying to find out what happened to Gina. (Cue awkward silences)
• Alex totally confuses Calvin by bursting into tears in front of him, after he offers to just forget about the night before and she says she doesn’t want to.
• Calvin and Alex have another bonding cemetery moment when they’re attacked by two vamps. This fight doesn’t go so well and Calvin ends up getting bitten.

Next time round well be getting back on track with the plot and edging that much closer to the end of Fall, Season 1!
Previously on Fall
Jennis write ups

The episode picks up exactly after the last one left off. The team are driving around Fall River with their people divination wire trying to track down Xavier.

After some time they realise that they’re back tracking and end up right back at Darius’. Something isn’t quite right though. The door is on it’s hinges, the lights are on inside and there is a big black van parked outside.

Alex jumps out of the car and runs full tilt towards the house. Just before she gets to the door she ploughs straight into some sort of force field.

It becomes quickly obvious that this force field goes all the way around the house, and stops people (and dogs) leaving as well as entering. While the gang is trying to work out how to get through who should show up at the front door but Megan’s mirror world doppelganger, Evil Megan (EM for short). Behind her floats the mirror that links the two worlds together and she unconcernedly walks out of the house.

Calvin throws himself at her, only to get a broken wrist in the process. By this stage EM has almost made it to the van so Alex finally jumps into action and tries to jump in the drivers seat and take off with the mirror. Unfortunately she just does another face plant in a force field, falling flat on her back.

Darius decides that the best course of action is to try to twist the reality around EM and her cronies (including the blue haired Mirror Xavier) and for some reason sets bees on them. While the spell works and the bees start attacking them, it is also a spell too many. Darius gets thrown back by the force of it, blood pouring from his eyes, nose and mouth. It was a very close run thing here, Darius very nearly didn’t survive this particular spell casting.

Alex spends the next little while checking that Darius is still alive, Calvin is ok and trying to calm a hysterical Megan down. About this time the police arrive and Alex tells them the mostly true story of getting back to Darius’ to find it broken into and that Darius got beaten up. He and Calvin are whisked to hospital.

Alex drives Kermit behind the ambulance and gets Megan to hack into the hospital records and make sure that they can visit him. Megan isn’t thinking very clearly and starts trying to make it so that Alex and Darius are now related, but stops when she realises that they’ll need to break into City Hall to change physical copies of birth records.

Luckily Darius is stabilised, even though the doctors have no idea what’s wrong with him, and Calvin’s wrist will be fine. While they’re waiting to hear what’s happening with Darius Megan checks in on what the police have found. Apparently there was a dead body in Darius’ basement. The dessicated husk of Xavier. The police also look into the car registrations that Alex told them and it seems that they belong to a number of the Fallen. About this time it seems that someone higher up starts to cover things up and all the police files start to get deleted after being sent to Chief Superintendent Fergusson.

Not wanting to sit around the hospital Alex starts to investigate the Fallen. Despite learning some interesting things about the power structure of Fall River and that the Hams are way richer than they even appear she doesn’t get any major leads on what is going on with EM.

Changing tac, Alex arranges to have coffee with Megan. While sitting at Bohemian Like You, Megan gets grilled about the mirror, and it turns out that there was also a self help book/diary as well. After going over to Megan’s house and checking it out it appears that things aren’t quite as they seemed. During research back at Darius’ it turns out that:

• The book is super old and that it’s linked to the demon Janus (also worshipped as a god). He’s all about chaos, new beginnings and doorways.
• That the ritual that Xavier had done had been messed with so that rather than being a spell to give the caster great power, it was actually ‘welcome to our world, and while you’re at it take our souls’ kind of deal.

Not knowing what to do next, and feeling very out of their depth they take Darius out of hospital for the day and go to see Huruni. Using the voice of Simon Cowell, he tells them that he has a way to close the portal between the two worlds. Once that’s done then any one of the Mirror world in this world will cease to exist. All he needs is a living creature from that world o that he can get the right frequency.

Everyone looks at Calvin, thinking the same thing. Gina.

Calvin glumly drops off the others at the store so they can get jelly babies for Huruni (as a thank you for his help) and then goes on to his house to give Gina the bad news (about EM being in this world and dying) and ask for her help. The conversation doesn’t go well and Gina takes of in one of the Grant family cars.

A little while later Alex checks in with Calvin to see how it went. He relates that it didn’t go well and when Alex asks how he is he texts back with

Can we talk?

Alex is confused and suddenly very nervous by this and agrees to meet him at St Mary’s Cemetery soon. When they meet up there is a lot of not talking. Finally Calvin breaks the silence

Calvin:….Gina’s leaving. You know, she’s all excited about travelling and I just to tell her that if she does, then she’ll die.
Alex: Yeah, it sucks.
Calvin:….
Alex: So, what did you want to talk about?
Calvin: So, Gina’s going.
Alex: Yep.
Calvin: And…I’m in love with you.
A:…what?
C: Yep .
A: No, what did you just say?
C: I’m in love with you.
A: Since when?
C: You know when we first met?
A: When we were six?
C: No, I mean, since we grew up…you remember that I told Mason not to go out with you?
A (still angry about it): yes.
C: It wasn’t ’cause I didn’t like you. It was because I did.
A: Oh.
C: But then you went out with him anyway and then you were Mason’s girl and I couldn’t…so I just…and since all this vampires and shit started happening-
Vampires: do you remember ordering takeout?

In a truly awesome sequence Calvin and Alex both dust a vampire each in two moves. As the dust settles Alex can’t look at Calvin, he’s totally thrown her. Every part of her is screaming to run away.

Calvin starts talking again

Calvin: Since all this vampires and shit started happening… You’re amazing. The way you’ve dealt with all of it…

Alex doesn’t run. Instead she drops her stake, turns around and kisses him. The non existent camera pans up to the full moon and the episode ends.

Previously on Fall
Jenni’s write ups

First up is episode 22, Icarus gets his Wings.

It’s been two weeks since Alex lost and reclaimed her Slayer powers. In that time she’s:

• Gone patrolling
• Ditched school
• Killed vampires
• Not done homework
• Spent a lot of time in cemeteries.

The others have been doing an assortment of things, like Megan hacking the school computer to make up Alex’s grades and Calvin helping Gina get ready to see the country.

The episode opens at the Limit. Alex is dancing out her pain with some guy, Megan is trying not to look at Calvin and the guys are arguing about which Seinfeld character they are.

They’re so engrossed in this conversation that they don’t notice Xavier (the creep that tried to curse Calvin) walk into the club with a bunch of cronies. Alex does though and quickly follows him, even though he goes into the men’s room. She gets stopped by Xavier’s lackeys but after some forceful negotiation (she breaks one of the guys hands) makes it into the room.

She enters just in time to see Xavier finish some kind of ritual or spell. She tries to get him to open up about what he’s doing in there, but he’s just sort of smug and uncommunicative.

Alex: What are you doing Xavier?
Xavier: This is the men’s.
Alex: Sooo…What are you doing here?
Xavier: I have the requisite equipment for membership.
Alex: You think you do…

About half way through their conversation Calvin bursts in (just as Xavier calls Alex a bitch). The rest of the bathroom exchange is made with Alex and Calvin very much on the back foot. Nothing they do seems to harm Xavier even a little bit, and he even manages to throw Calvin across the room.

Xavier leaves the room with his boys, after shoving Darius into a toilet and winking at Megan (they had finally managed to make there way through the dudes outside). All in all a frustrating experience for our Slayer and her friends.

They quickly launch into research mode, with a number of theories being thrown around.

• Xavier was possessed.
• That he was actually the mirror world version. Though a quick phone call to Gina reveals that mirror Xavier has blue hair, piercings and a fondness for other people’s pain.
• That he’s managed to cast some kind of spell on himself making him uber Xavier.

While the rest of the gang go through books, Alex decides the most productive thing she can do is go and punch a tree till she stops wanting to kill things. So she does. Calvin notices this and comes outside to try and talk to her, but things don’t go so well and Alex ends up storming inside.

Where she finds Darius about to cast another spell. After last episode’s spell casting disaster she is pretty upset by this turn of events. As it seems that Darius is set on destroying them all with his magic, Alex decides to clear the blast zone and bolts.

Awhile later she comes back to find Darius nursing a nasty burn from his exploding cauldron. Turns out the spell failed. Surprise, surprise.

Alex and Darius then fight about his magic use and the events that lead to her loosing her powers. The argument final ends when Alex steps forward in a menacing manner intent on beating some sense into him. Calvin intervenes and manages to defuse the situation.

They all agree that they need to find Xavier to at least see what he’s up to. So they pile into Kermit, after a quick casting of Find the Named (yet more magic) and head off into the night.

Previously on Fall
Jenni’s write ups

We pick back up on Saturday morning, with Alex texting Megan to make sure she makes it to Darius’ for research-o-rama on the Hell Hounds. After a weird text exchange about the likelihood of Calvin’s presence, Alex jumps on her bike and heads to Darius’ via the park, where the police are still working hard trying to work it out.  One of the police dogs bark as she rides past, so Alex keep moving.

Meanwhile at Calvin’s house there is a knock on the door, he’s sleeping in so ignores it. Martha answers and then heads up to tell him it’s the police. He pulls himself out of bed (insert fan service moment) and goes down to talk to them. The one of the officers starts grilling him about the night before, while the other takes notes. He tells the kind of truth, about how a friend contacted him upset and they went for a walk before he caught a cab home. It’s going fine up until the point when they ask to search Kermit. Then Calvin asks for his lawyer.

While this is happening Megan turns up at Darius’ house, looking very hot with a new hair cut and clothes. Darius nervously lets her in, looking for vases. She bounces in looking for Calvin the others but is the first to arrive.

While Alex is still en route Martha calls and lets her know about that Calvin is talking to the police.

“It doesn’t sound good”.

Alex rides full tilt to Darius’ and lets them know that Calvin is in trouble. Megan and Darius start looking for magic ways to clear out the trunk full of incriminating monster hunting weapons in the back of Calvin’s car.

Alex is convinced that telling the truth is the best option. She heads off to the police while Darius plans to cast a spell called Transform Reality… what could go wrong? Megan hacks the telephone company to clean out any weird monster related texts from the records. Except the one between Alex and Calvin last night.

Alex turns on the water works and tells the police about finding the body and how awful it was. Darius casts his spell successfully (he thinks) and then watches as the police search the car and find nothing but innocent looking car tools and a fluffy pink bunny.

The police ask Calvin to sign a release form and tell him off for not telling the truth.

“Luckily a concerned member of the public stepped forward.”

He then jumps into Kermit and drives to Darius’. On the way he notices that all of his music has disappeared off his iPod, most of which was pirated. It’s been replaced with music from his parents CD collection.

The team meet back at Darius’ house. Darius is feeling very pleased with himself, the others are pretty creeped out by the spell. Calvin realises that his jacket changed while he was in the car from a heavy duty leather duster to an ordinary leather coat. He is not amused.

Figuring that the spell must still be active, Darius and Calvin look to see if other stuff gets changed by putting a battle axe into the car. When it comes out like a foam pointing finger they decide to see what happens if they put Evil Megan’s mirror in there. Alex manages to stop them before they can, and they notice that Darius’ hand is bleeding from being cut by the foam pointing battle axe.

While taking the mirror back downstairs Alex and Calvin have a moment.

Calvin: “Hey, so thanks for today… with the police. I’m guessing you were the member of the public who came forward? Thanks.”
Alex: “You’d do the same for me.”

Once everything is tidy the gang start trying to find ways to undo the spell on Kermit. Darius finds one called “Undo Witch’s Spell”, and starts doing the prep in the kitchen.

Everyone else stays a safe distance away, Alex is reading on the stairs keeping out of the way. As Darius does his casting, Alex starts to get the creepy feeling that she’s being watched or looked at. The spell continues and as it gets to the end Alex feels kind of strange.

They all troop outside to see if Kermit is back to normal. Unfortunately it looks like the spell was a no go. Kermit is still normalising things and so Alex decides that it’s time to move on to the Hell Hounds. She heads back inside and heads over to an axe on the wall and grabs it, her arms collapses and the axe drops to the floor.

It seems obvious that Darius’ spell did work, but not on Kermit. Instead it seems to have stripped Alex of her Slayer powers. Alex is in shock. She suddenly feels utterly exhausted and goes to sit on the couch, then lays down and falls asleep.

While Alex sleeps on the couch the others try to get another opinion by calling the witches in the UK. Luckily it seems that the coven has a 24 hour help line for just this sort of situation.

“Ah.. we were expecting your call. One of our pre-cogs warned us.”

After a bit of back and forward the help desk sends someone to help. The others turn at a voice to find the ventriloquists dummy, Sid, perched above the sleeping Alex. He may have been checking out her boobs.

Calvin: “Dude, not cool.”
Sid winks at him.
Calvin: “That is spooky.”
Sid: “I’m Sid.”

Calvin ushers them all into the library so that Alex can continue to sleep, and is tucking a blanket around her when she jerks awake.

Getting the story from Sid, it seems that Darius’ spell did strip Alex of her powers. She’s just regular old Alex again and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.

Escaping outside Alex is contemplating the possibility that all of the dreams and plans she had a year ago could still happen. Alex never wanted to be a Slayer and now she can be normal again. Megan follows her and tries to convince her to be responsible and that the world needs her. Alex doesn’t really want to hear it and asks to be left alone.

While continuing to sit on the steps Alex hears a rustling in the bushes. It could be a cat, or it could be one of the Hell Hounds. Unfortunately for Alex she now knows all of the things that go bump in the night, and even though she can undo being a slayer she can’t undo what she knows. The bushes rustle again and she gets up to go inside.

Alex: “Ok, lets do it then. What do you need?”

Alex, Sid and Megan head up stairs to a spare room to start doing the ritual. Just as they are about to start Alex turns to Sid,

Alex: “Can I have someone, just watching?”
Sid: “I don’t really want the distractions…”
Megan: “I’ll be really quiet.”
Alex: “Wait, what’s Calvin doing?”
Megan: “What do you mean?”
Alex: “Never mind.”

Alex then settles down on a chair as Sid tells her to concentrate on a crystal. His voice pulls her into a hypnotic state and suddenly she’s in some strange cave like place with a threatening black form coming out of the floor. The form washes over her and despite every atom telling her to fight it, Alex let’s the thing seep beneath her skin. Next she feels it start to try and take over her sense of self.

Alex screams and starts fighting it with everything she can.

Calvin and Darius run upstairs when they hear the scream and burst into the room to see what’s going on. Alex is on the floor and Sid is watching impassively as she thrashes around.  She finally settles down and Calvin turns to Sid:

Calvin: “Is she alright?”
Sid: “I guess she had some issues to work through. It looks like she went a couple of rounds with herself. She might be rejecting part of her nature.”

Calvin scoops her up and after directions from Darius takes Alex into a spare room to let her rest. Megan follows as well and the two of them keep an eye on Alex as she sleeps after her ordeal.

This peace lasts for about 10 minutes, after which Alex wakes up and upon seeing Darius launches out of bed, batting Megan aside like a rag doll. Alex’s eyes are all glowy and yellow and she lifts Darius up by the scruff of his neck.

Alex (with a weird echoy voice): “No more magic. More reading.”

Darius is then dropped in a heap and Alex also collapses again. Calvin is suddenly there again, scooping her up and putting her somewhere more comfortable.

Calvin takes Megan downstairs to try to tend to the bump on her head, before deciding that the best thing to do is make sure she doesn’t sleep for awhile and so they stay up watching TV.

The next morning people are tip toeing around, when Alex wakes with a scream from a dream of blackness engulfing her. Not a fun way to wake up on a Sunday morning. As Sid talks to her to help her calm down the others make their way to the room. There is an awkward moment when Alex notices the big bruise on Megan’s face, and asks what happened. The crew then find out a little more about why there are suddenly so many Slayers.

Heading downstairs for breakfast Alex spies the front page of the paper with the headline “Another Body Found”, which rather strengthens her resolve. While munching on a large bowl of cereal Alex maps out where all of the bodies have been found. It seems that the Hell Hound is making a line out of town, towards the forest, snacking happily as it goes. The team make a plan to meet up later that afternoon (Alex realises she should really make an appearance at home today) and clear out of Darius’ house.

Leaving him to go into the garage to attempt to remove the spell on Kermit for a second time. Which he dutifully does, after preparing slightly more carefully this time. Feeling rather impressed with himself he heads back inside.

When Alex turns up again a little while later Darius starts off saying sorry for the night before, and then smuggly places the axe (which yesterday was turned into the pointy finger). Alex looks at it, then back at Darius, before launching into him.

Alex: “You messed up last night, and the thing I had to go through to get back what your spell took was so hard. You have no idea how hard it was. I will wake up screaming because of that. This stuff is bigger than you. It’s bigger than me. For all we know it will destroy the world.”

Darius then tries to defend himself saying that all he wants to do, and Alex clearly doesn’t believe him. They’re glaring at each other when Calvin drives up in a car borrowed from his parents. Megan arrvies about the same time and when she heads into the house Darius goes too.

Calvin: “So….uh, are you ok?”
Alex: “Not really.”
Calvin: “So, you want to go kill some stuff?”
Alex: “Yeah.”

Now that the whole crew is together they set to hunting Hell Hounds. The plan is pretty simple, go to the butcher’s shop which is on the Hell Hound’s planned route and kill it. They assume that the blood from the shop will be a sure draw card. It turns out that their assumptions are right on the money. They pull up and all pile out of car and start looking around the alley. Alex hears something coming out of the darkness and gets ready to kill it very dead. Calvin steeps forward too and as Alex tries to take it out the Hound goes for her knee caps. Calvin and Darius then swing their axes with all of their strength hitting the beasty for an two impressive hits and it goes down in a heap. Alex didn’t even get a chance. They stand around a little in shock by how easily they took it down when a light comes on in a near by building.

Alex (almost growling): “Let’s go.”
Darius: “What about the body, shouldn’t we do something with it?”
Calvin: “It’s not our problem.”
Darius: “Yet.”
Calvin: “What are they going to do? “You killed an animal we don’t believe exists. We’re really angry?”
Darius: “True.”

Considering how much of an anti climax the fight was Alex gets Calvin to drive to the nearest cemetery, after all a girl has to burn through her aggression somehow. Calvin offers to drop the others home, but they choose to stick around.

They quickly find what Alex is looking for. A hapless, lonely vampire. He has a bit of a start when he sees their assorted weaponry and takes off full tilt. Alex takes off after him, utterly unconcerned whether the others follow or not. They do, but are some way behind. Alex catches up to the newbie vamp and starts pummeling  him for all she’s worth.  This goes on for sometime and when Calvin, Darius and Megan turn up she is crouched over the prone vamp driving his head into the pavement. The sight of of Alex being so cruel, even to a vampire visibly upsets Megan and she begs Alex to finish it.

Alex obliges and twists his head off, dusting him. As she gets up and turns round the others see tears streaming down her face. Megan’s attempt to comfort her a rebuffed and Alex walks alone back to the car.

The episode ends with Calvin driving them home through the dark, as Alex contemplates that her Slayer-ness seems much darker now than it was before.

Previously on Fall
Jenni’s reports

Reaching my Limits, Part 1 started the day after the bug fight. It’s a Friday and things are seeming a little tense in the high school. Darius is being given a very wide berth, with most people not too sure what he’s going to do, but very eager to gossip about it once he’s walked past. It seems that another huge hole was dug up last night, but this time it was filled with green goo. Obviously the work of a vengeful Darius after the jocks filled his locker with jelly.

The day passes pretty surreally and uneventful. The boys meet up at lunch, Darius again able to find an empty table, which impresses Calvin greatly.

Calvin: “Have you seen Megan?”

Darius: “Noo…”

Calvin: “Oh.”

Darius: “Why?”

Calvin: Oh, no reason. She just said something weird to me last night and… well…”

Darius: “About what?”

Calvin: “Oh.. I think she got the wrong idea about something… ahh.. never mind.”

They get to talking about Darius’ new bad ass status when Alex arrives with a thump of text books. She seems a bit wired, and only stays long enough to suggest that they all meet at The Limit tonight to unwind. Calvin and Darius agree and Alex rushes out to keep working on her many overdue essays and assignments.

Alex heads home after school to show her face to her parents, and dutifully asks permission to be going out that night. Her parents reluctantly agree and so she passes the next few hours doing more homework, having “Family Time” and counting down till she can escape.

Over dinner she notices some tension between her parents and Jared, but waits till she leaves the house to grill him on it. A flurry of text messages pass between them, but it seems her little brother isn’t interested in sharing.

Alex arrives at The Limit to find it packed. She can’t see any of the others, so heads straight to the bar to order a Coke. While looking over the other patrons and finding her eyes wandering to the cuter members of the crowd she notices Darius doing a Moses impression, as all the people move away from him. Alex pushes through to reach him and suggests they take to the dance floor. Once they get there Darius decides to show of everything he learned on the gymnastics team and starts pulling out twists, tumbles and rolls.

This catches the attention of Calvin and Gina who arrived earlier to have dinner and secure a booth.

Gina: “Is Darius ok?”

Calvin: “What do you mean?”

Gina: “His dancing. Could he be possessed?”

Calvin: “…”

The dancing continues for sometime with Darius eventually calming down and going over to meet up with the others. Alex catches the eye of a cute guy named Devon (who might possibly be in college) and stays on the dance floor for a few more songs. She eventually takes a break as well.

Alex is chatting away, a little on the hyperactive side, when Gina looks a little concerned.

Gina: “Are you ok? You seem a bit tired.”

Alex: “Yeah, I’m good. Just not getting a lot of sleep at the moment.”

Gina: “Oh?”

Alex: “Yeah… well I’m only really sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night. I’ve realised since I’ve become a slayer that I can get by on a lot less sleep.”

Gina, Darius and Calvin: “…”

Alex: “This way I can keep up with school, placate my parents and still have plenty of time to patrol. It’s working great. Hey, who wants to dance?”

She hurries back to the dance floor and is quickly joined by Devon, who is egged on by his friends, while Calvin looks on worriedly.

Not long after she realises that she isn’t going to make curfew with needing to catch the bus. Devon quickly offers to drive her home and she takes him up on it. Stopping by the booth to grab her jacket and to say goodbye, Devon gently helps her through the crowd and out the door.

Calvin: “I bet he’s a vampire.”

Darius: “Well if he is, more fool him. Alex can take care of herself.”

Calvin: “I think he’s creepy. I’m going to bail”

Darius: “….”

Calvin makes for the door, followed by a somewhat confused Darius and Gina. They have an awkward conversation outside when they see Alex is long gone, before Calvin heads off, leaving Gina to get a ride with Darius.

Calvin jumps in the oh so subtle Kermit and casually drives past Alex’s house… only to see her light isn’t on. So he drives off, does a loop of the block and drives back past again. Still no light. He slows, almost stops and then zooms off home.

Meanwhile inside Alex is being lectured by her parents for being 5 minutes later than her curfew. She once again placates them, and gently extricates herself despite her mother’s suggestion of pancakes. Once the house quietens down she sneaks out of the window to do her patrol.

Coming around a corner in a local park she almost literally stumbles upon a very badly savaged body. All she can tell is that it used to be a boy and he may have been to her school. He is also gently steaming, so until very recently he was alive.

She goes immediately on her guard looking for what might have done this. Her next reaction is to text Calvin.

Alex: U awake?

Almost immediately he texts back: Yeah

Alex: Found body in Maryland Park. Not good. Can u come?

Calvin: On my way

While she waits for him to arrive she also texts Darius, who drops off Gina and heads over as well.

Calvin arrives, handing Alex a machete, as she comes to the conclusion that this is the work of Hell Hounds. Or at least Hell Hound, no doubt the one that ran off a couple of weeks ago after savaging Megan and Calvin. Calvin calls the ambulance telling them where the body is before promptly hanging up before they can connect him to the police.

They head further into the park to try and find some trace of the demon, but are utterly unsuccessful. They circle back round in time to see police cars pulling up next to the ambulance and the ever conspicuous Kermit. Darius also arrives about now but wisely decides to keep moving.

They decide to just slink off and walk back to Alex’s house discussing the likely locations of the Hound’s lair. Underground and near blood is mentioned in some of the books Alex read, so she’s convinced that it will be in the sewers.

They get back to Alex’s house and she climbs back into her room, leaving Calvin to go jump in a cab and head home.

What next for our heroes? Will:

• Megan show up? Where has she been?!
• Calvin continue to be overly protective of Alex?
• Darius finally get into a fight? Provoked or otherwise?
• Alex see Devon again?
• The Hell Hound lead them to whoever is summoning these beasties?

Find out next time on, Fall.

Taking time cleaning it up Darius gets to home room a little late, where he is promptly sent to the principle’s office. Once there he’s accused of destroying the practice field, on his own, in a single night. His accusers? A bunch of jocks, the same ones that recently egged his house and filled his locker with blue goo. Despite (or perhaps because of) his rather terrible attempts at proving his innocence he too gets sent to guidance councillor, for the rest of the day.

The team meet up in the cafeteria, with Darius again trying to taunt the jocks. He rather obviously grabs a table that isn’t in their usual area, causing all the less cool kids who were there to scatter. Calvin arrives, impressed by the empty table followed by Alex (weighed down by all the books she needs to deal with her action plan) and Megan. After a bit of chatting and some more helpful advice on how to get around the councillor from Calvin (apparently he’s had a lot of practise;

Calvin: “Tell her you’ve had a change of heart and that you want to work through your issues.”

the team splits back up, with Alex guiding Darius back to the councillor while heading to the library and Calvin and Megan heading for the feild to check it out for any type of occultness made by either the jocks or the Fallen.

The field is a real mess, huge holes everywhere. More holes in fact than Darius could actually be expected to dig in a single night, on his own. Megan notices a flap of skin attached to a metal plate and thinks it looks like the holes were made from below. Calvin notices that there are hole, obviously distracted by something. On the way back into school the thing that’s distracting Calvin becomes obvious and he tries to get some advice for dealing with girls from Megan.

Calvin: “So, you’re a girl right?”

(for a full hilarious write up of this conversation head over to Jenni’s actual play report.)

They split up, Calvin looking embarrassed and a little frustrated, while a panicked Megan heads to library where Alex is.

Megan: It was weird…
Alex: So, there were holes in the field.
Megan: I think Calvin might love you.
Alex puts her pen down: Are you on crack?
Megan: No.
Alex: have you been playing with the mirror again?
Megan: no.
Alex: I really don’t think he is. Tell me about the field.
Megan: Yeah, he said…(she relates the conversation with Calvin.)
Alex: He probably means Gina.
Megan:… Oh yeah.

(Copied directly from Jenni, who is really much better at getting the quotes down than I am)

Alex gets back to her school books, not wanting to have this conversation any more. Megan gives helpful hints to Alex so she can complete the 8 essays she’s trying to complete simultaneously.

After school they head to books to find out what’s going on (after dropping Alex home so she can placate the parents). Some awesome dice rolling and the characters all being rather smart meant that the research went particularly well. So well in fact that after Alex leaves home to come join them (hearing as she leaves the house that her little brother is staying at a friend’s place, when she has to be home by 12… oh and wasn’t he kidnapped and almost killed a few weeks back?? Talk about denial) she picks up a book that has all the answers. Talk about stealing their thunder!

Anyway it looks like these holes were made by some sort of bug demon larvae called a Gulk Demon. It seems that it needs 24 hours in a rather specific type of soil to grow big and strong. How big? Well you know those stories about cattle mutilation? Yeah, probably this beasty. It likes it’s meat apparently.

Seeing that by this stage it’s night time and the holes were originally made the night before the team leap into action. Darius and Alex stake out the field with some weapons in case the beasty wakes up while Megan and Calvin head off to the store to pick up half a pig, some sausages and other assorted meat products. After all they didn’t want it flying off before they had time to kill it.

On the way back to the field Megan corners Calvin about their earlier conversation;

Megan: About earlier?
Calvin: what?
Megan: Where you were asking for advice about Gina?
Calvin: What?
Megan: I thought you were asking about Alex. But then I realised it wasn’t her.
Calvin:… (stares ahead at the road. Refuses to look at her. His knuckles go white from clenching the steering wheel.)
Megan: So if you need some advice, you know, as a friend…I’m here.
Calvin: OK… it’s OK.
Megan:…

Calvin turns the music up loudly to drown out any more potential conversation.

Megan and Calvin arrive, and not long after the bug demon bursts free. Alex throws an axe at it then runs forward to finish it off. The demon leaps over her, directly to the meat and the waiting Megan. It does a pulse of light which Megan and Alex roll high enough constitution rolls to avoid, but Darius and Calvin get blinded by it. Alex heads over to finish the beasty off, throwing herself on to it’s back.

Meanwhile a blinded Darius decides to us telekinesis to try and… do something. I’m not sure what. But seeing as he’s blinded what he really does is magically pick Alex up and start moving her way. She yells out and grabs onto one of the antennae and Darius finally stops the effect. Alex then promptly falls in front of the demon’s mouth and gets stabbed in the stomach by the beasty’s proboscis. More yelling ensues. Calvin manages to grope around for another crossbow bolt and actually reloads the damn thing and Megan helpfully bashes the demon with her spade.

Darius’s eyesight clears and he rushes forwrd yelling;

“It’s all your fault!”

Before driving a machete into the Gulk demon, killing it. It then collapses on top of him in a puddle of green goo this time.

The team cleans up as much as they can and then head back to Darius’. Luckily Alex has a stock pile of clean clothes there so she can change before heading home. Calvin patches her up and then drops her home, followed by Megan. Just before Megan jumps out of the car she turns to Calvin;

“So if it’s not Gina and it’s not Alex… then.. is it…”

She jumps out of the car and runs inside before Calvin has a chance to respond.

Previously on Fall
Jenni’s reports

In an effort to get better at recording the games I’m in I too am going to get back into the habit, but this one got a little long. I’ll see what I can do about making them more succinct. However with no further ado, Fall: Episode 18!

A week and a half ago Alex almost lost Calvin and Megan to a pack of hell hounds, this has left her with a few guilt issues as well as a growing anger management problem. The episode opens on a montage of Alex moping, killing vampires and generally being a bit angsty and angry. Darius, who didn’t go patrolling that night, is also somewhat over come with guilt and has been working hard to improve his skills. The final shot of the montage has Alex holding a vamp, while Darius stakes it. I’m pretty sure it’s also raining…

Alex gets home to find two disappointed parents sitting at the dinning room table. She’s dripping wet, covered in mud and her clothes are a bit ripped. Not the best look. After an awkward confrontation in which Alex is sorely tempted to tell them the truth, she’s sent to her room with a warning that grounding is immanent.

The next day it’s off to school. Alex is in home room, staring moodily out the windows. The home room teacher calls Alex to the front of the class and informs her that Principle Van Burg wants to see her. She stalks off and then sits in the hall, unconsciously sizing up the other students as potential opponents. It looks like our Slayer is getting a little dark. In time she’s called in and the predictable conversation about Alex’s slipping grades ends with her being sent to the guidance councilor so she can get help “sorting it out”.

Meanwhile, Calvin has finally decided to head back to school after skiving off for a week on his doctors note. He heads straight to the AV Club to find Darius, and kicks the beret boys out.

As Calvin kicks them out Darius mutters “Tossers”, just as one of them comes back into the room. An awkward silence follows.

Calvin, for some reason (possibly the curse but, whatever), is fixated on the thought that Xavier is behind the hell hounds. He reasons seem to be that as they need to be summoned and Xavier has already been implicated in the summoning of some weird, aggressive flying monkeys. So the boys decide direct action is the way to go and head off to find him.

Megan is also back at school today, after being discharged from hospital a few days earlier. She has decided that after being dumped from the cheer leading squad not long after being let out of ICU that she would avoid all contact with the “popular” crowd and heads off to work on her ultra creepy chess playing hand (which drums it’s fingers and makes suggestions if it’s opponent takes to long) science project.

The rest of the day is filled with Darius and Calvin slightly ineptly confronting Xavier, Megan and Alex catching up in the cafeteria (and Alex awkwardly saying sorry), Darius committing social hari-kari by tipping a coke all over the cheerleaders and Alex and Calvin confusing the student body will talking about flying monkeys and hell hounds in the halls.

In response to an odd look from another student, Calvin and Alex respond at the same time;

Calvin “It’s a play we’re in”
Alex “Gangs”

After school they head back to the cemetery where the gang was attacked by the hell hounds. When they get there Alex remembers this is where she was first attacked by the monkeys. So she climbs a tree to see if there are any clues. She finds nothing, but over at a near by crypt they find some old coins. Thinking they won’t find anything else interesting here they head back to Darius’ for research.

The whole team (apparently this is the first time Calvin has bothered to help) dig up what they can and find that there are rituals that use coins like that to summon creatures from other dimensions.

About this time Alex calls home to discover that her parents are pissed again, because she forgot to say she wouldn’t be home for dinner, and Darius’ house gets egged and toilet papered by the jocks. Alex decides to not push her luck and heads home, keeping to curfew.

What next for the crew?

• Will Darius get overrun with the blue jelly added to his locker?
• Will Megan mange to fade back into a wall flower?
• Will Calvin ever get proof that his vendetta against Xavier is justified?
• Will Alex get kicked out of school?

Check in time to find out in Fall – Episode 19 “Losing Ground, Part 2″.

Previously on Fall
Jenni’s reports

Episode 7: Change the Channel
Episode 8: This is your brain on drugs
Episode 9: You can’t make an Omelette

Worst day ever started with a montage of the different characters after they managed to stop the nasty curse from last time. Alex wandered around in the rain, musing on the total mess she’d made with Mason and the conversation she’d had with Lissie Borden before returning home.

The next day at school Calvin lay in wait for Xavier, wanting to pummel him into submission. But despite being run into by the object of Calvin’s ire, Alex wasn’t overly interested in taking part due to being deep in her own misery (read more about what happened over at Jenni’s write up). In fact Alex rather pointedly ignores every member of their little crew until cornered in the bath room by Megan.

After an initial bout of suspicion on Alex’s part she eventually opens up a little, explaining that it’s just not safe for any of them to be around her and that they’ll inevitably all die. Megan seems highly sceptical about all this but before she can make her point Alex makes her escape.

School ends and with it comes a trip to Bohemian Like You, a local cafe, where Alex has arranged to meet Mason to discuss the fact that she blew him off last night and then lied about it. The conversation was highly awkward and ended with Alex essentially breaking up with him as

“We move in two different worlds and should stop thinking that they mix.”

Mason thinks there is another guy, Alex (truthfully) says there isn’t and it all ends on a rather emotionally charged note.

While all this angst is going on Darius, Megan and Calvin are working out ways to a) show Alex that they are useful and can totally look after themselves and b) work out a way to stop Xavier from cursing any one else (accidentally or otherwise). While Calvin plays with Darius’ dog the other two hit the books. As usual they successfully find relevant spells though this time the most useful one involves ripping the magic out of one person and either holding on to it or passing it on to another (can anyone say Rack?). It’s decided that this might be a little too morally grey, even for this lot, so instead they decide to go see if Haruni can be of any help with dealing with Xavier. They jump in Kermit with some appropriate gifts and head out into the forest only to be stopped by a park ranger.

Mean while Alex has decided that the best way to work through her emotions is to beat up on the undead. She heads into a cemetery and after quickly dispatching a newbie who had until recently gone to her school goes looking for more. And does she find them. Coming across a crypt with 5 vamps, Alex is initially hesitant until she sees the beaten, bloody and bitten corpse of a young woman. Loosing what’s left of her cool she rushes in attempting to stack two of the vamps in quick succession. Unfortunately for Alex I rolled extremely badly and barely scratched them.

Back at the car it turns out the park ranger is actually infected by one of the Bon Sh’kar demons. In an impressive display of team work they make pretty short work of it. Calvin acts as bait, while Megan shines a high powered flash light in the ranger/demon’s eyes. Darius takes advantage of the distraction to open a car door in his face. The highlight of the fight from my point of view on the sidelines is when Darius, desperate to get the ranger/demon’s gun manages to pull it from his hands with the power of his mind. The look of shock when it works was awesome.

Unfortunately for Alex her fight isn’t going so well. She manages to hold her own (after burning through drama points) for most of it slowly but surely picking off the vamps, two go down relitivly easily. Things get kind of messy when the remaining three try to jump on her to drive her to the ground. Alex manages to stake one before being grabbled and almost gets another, the stake is stuck just next to the heart. The third vamp grapples her to the ground and holds her there. She manages a well placed kick to the stake in the chest of the blood sucker still standing, dusting him, but gets bitten by the one behind her before breaking free and running from the crypt. She knows returning home covered in blood and looking like death (how many of her 76 life points are left? Oh none) is not the best move. So she makes it to Darius’ just in time to collapse dramatically on the door step.

Cue theme music and gasps from all the viewers. Will Alex be ok? Is this the last we’ve heard of the vamp who beat up our girl? Can the kidnapping of another student be gotten away with? And what about those blue guys? Tune in next time!

This episode was very much a Calvin-centric episode which was a great change in pacing. It has of course already been written up, as always, by Jenni. So I’m going to summarise the episode and go into detail on the bits that were most relevant for Alex.

The episode starts up the day after our trip to the woods last time, at school. Someone tries to curse Calvin, by sticking a piece of paper on his back,  but is only successful in cursing his lab partner Melinda who picks it off only to have the weird symbol drawn on it dissolve into her hand and then a few minutes later collapse with a high fever. Calvin, in an unusual display of heroics, takes her to the nurse before setting out to hunt down the person who tried to do it to him. He attempts to physically intimidate William Ham into admitting it was him, but only gets a bunch of bruises for his trouble.

The rest of the episode very much revolves around Darius and Megan researching while Calvin and Alex go in hunt for the other likely perpetrator, Xavier (another guy Calvin beat up for information, seeing a pattern?). The research goes something like this:

• Darius and Megan do research (their players, as always due to the very high intelligence and the really good occult library, rolling in the high teens which equals high successes)
• Megan finds the curse, and draws out the symbol
• Said symbol then disappears into Megan’s hand (as it did into Melinda’s earlier at school)
• Megan then throws drama points around to find a cure, before passing out in Darius’s door way.

Darius then quickly calls Calvin and Alex with the indrediants they need to find in order to make a pultice that will draw the curse out. The duo on their way to do this when Alex realises she’s late for her date with Mason (which was arranged earlier at school). She calls and tries to brush him off (so she can continue driving around in cars with his best friend helping to save someone’s life) by saying her mum wants her home. He replies to this new rejection by replying,

“I’m at your house now.” Dead silence…

Alex quickly jumps out of the Kermit and runs home, through the rain of angst, only to get there just as Mason’s car pulls out of the drive way. She then walks aimlessly in the rain until she stubbles upon the slightly restless ghost of Lissie Borden, who is Fall River’s previous Slayer. Apparently her parent’s were possessed and she had to kill them, which lead to the famous ditty (though the Lissie Borden in this world died young, after 6 months as a Slayer, this was quite a shock to Alex). The talk for some time about Slayers, Watchers and such like. She also tells Alex that as a Slayer she needs to separate herself from others in order to keep them safe. The risks are too high otherwise.

Meanwhile Calvin has managed to find the ingredients for the sure thanks to a new-agey health food shop and saved both Melinda and Megan from the curse.The episode’s hero for sure.

Will this week find Alex cutting ties with all of those she calls friend? Will Calvin beat the snot out of Xavier again? Tune in to find out!