Inlé

1

The last thing Anya ever saw was the dagger.
No, bunkum, that was the last thing the TV watcher saw, because it was foul play from behind. (Pweeeee! Bringer sent off!)
What Anya saw last was a bright white light. Then she stood in purgatorys waiting room. (Nah, not the Chaos Comics vampiress, dummy.)
A big sign on the wall said "Please draw a waiting number and in the meantime fill out the form for further spending of eternity."
Anya looked around and mumbled something of someone seeing too much "Beetlejuice". Then, among the millions, she spotted someone.
"Oh, hi Spike. Here too?"
"Yup, terminal tan. And you?"
"KIA while defending the Stupid One. But we must have won."
"Alas!"
"Now look around! Rate of newcomers constant at a few per second." She pointed at a few new souls hovering in. If we lost, it would be rather crowded now."
"Elementary, Sherlock Anya."
"But what have I lost here? I have no soul."
"Surely? Them thingie itching and biting and making you ponder about your former deeds?"
"Why should I ever ponder about my deeds?"
In the same moment a lamp pinged on, "3587267321 in Room 5785567". Anya looked at her number and sighed. "4066235367. That might take an eternity." She skimmed through the form. "Mark your good deeds in column 3. In case they were for selfish motives, mark over to column 4b...If done under enforcement, book them as column 7a, lest...Have you ever worked for the First Evil or one of its camouflage organisations? Double the sum of column 2 and add...Quiet, Ayn...In the frame of caritative church work...subtract from column 3b...only deductible if...col 1b...col 1a... mortal sin...notional assessment...col 1c...Don't get excited, Ayn...ethics commission...add col 2 and col 3...swearing inside city limits...vengeance..."
It must have been the last word.
"Anya, now what, you can show your demon face?" Spike immediately tried himself. "Hey, cooool! Had I known beforehand I might have done some queue-jumping! Like Boo!" A poor soul ran for the pearly hills. "Uhm, Anya, I don't think it's actually a good idea to..."
Too late.
Anya headed straight for Room 1. A single kick sent the door out of its hinges. A bureaucrat angel looked up from his crossword, startled. Anya grabbed him by the throat. "I am Anyanka, Patriot Saint of Scorned Women! I threw away a life that lasted for thousand years just to avert instant Apocalypse. I won't invest the same time just to fill out stupid red tape. I can change the history of the universe on a fingersnip and change you squirt into a toad!"
For simplicity, she left out the finer details of her abilities. It wasn't done with a fingersnip after all.
"Yup, you should wish that she doesn't get real pissed!" Spike prompted. He had followed Anya, just in case.
"Spike, do you think 'Good demon - bad demon' will be helpful on this paper-shuffler?"
"Dunno, but you should calm down because of them." He pointed to a troop of security angels with flaming batons who came running to the ruckus. "Stop! Freeze! Resistance is futile!"
"Or else? We are already dead! Spike even twice!" Anya took a puncher and held it against the temple of the trembling bureaucrat.
The security, as usually wide off the mark, began to clobber the completely innocent Spike. Anya got real pissed.
The arm of the law got multiple fractures. After all, this was the Anya again who mopped up the floor with Slayer Supreme. The lamp went Red Alert.

A few smithereens later...
"We excuse for any inconvenience you might had. Evidently, our heavenly computer crashed on the fact that you are technically a human, but your soul..." "I have no soul!" "...your innermost essence, which defines your appearance in afterlife, is demonic in nature." The mandarin shoved around his records nervously. "We resolved that since your ex-tra-or-di-na-ri-ly merits for the Good surely outweigh your earlier misconducts, we upgrade you to angel status immediately. Please fetch wings and halo at Counter H7b."
The mandarin wiped off the sweat óf his forehead when Anya finally left.
"Now to you, Mr. Spike. I'm afraid you have to go to H-E-double hockey sticks..."
"I hate angels," grumbled Spike when he departed, exit down.

2

On Cloud 7b, a telescope allowed to watch life on Earth. The queue quickly scattered, as noone dared to argue when Anya floated in on giant bat wings like Vampirellas little sister and declared that it was an emergency.
"Has it to be overcrowded everywhere? They should take some money for a view downwards. Now let's see what Xandy does. I guess he is so grief-stricken that he committed suicide. No, can't be, I would have seen him by now. I bet the wascal immediately began to screw around with Buffy again. Or Faith. Or Leela. Xander, I kill you! Where are the thunderbolts? Now look at this, he is sleeping like a baby." She cranked around at the focus. "And he's got a hard-on. Surely he is dreaming of me. Oh, damn it, I need sex and I need it now."
Anya fluttered around in search for an angel jock. When she found her victim she took a nosedive and presented herself nude. "Look here, it's your birthday present." Angelic eyes popped out. "A bu...A bububu..." Then he fell unconscious. "Men! They are such wimps!" Anya examined his crotch and found - nothing. No weener, no schlong, no prick, nada, bupkus, zilch.
A female looking angel who had watched her sighed. "Sorry, but we are sexless now. We are angels. I wish..."
"You just said the magic word. Your wish is granted!"
The zilchness didn't grow.
"%&$§ing rules! You don't count as a woman!"
"Oh, please, no words like percent, ampersand, dollar or paragraph," whispered the spay. "They wash your dirty tongue with soap."
"Tongue? You just gave me a brilliant idea! Hey, Willow is a lez and squealed down the house when she was together with Kennedy, so it should work for me to. C'mon, lick my cherry!"
"Noooo! Heeelp! Mmmmpfh!"
Anya had caught her head between her legs. "Lick - or I pluck you like a Thanksgiving turkey! Oh, why has everybody to be so uptight?"
The angelette licked for her life.
When Anya was occupied with orgasming, the angel used this moment of distractedness to run away and file an indictment. The heavenly organisation was reluctant to intervene but suddenly got very interested hearing a detail of the report...

"The colleagues of Heavenly Intelligence botched up again." As usual, the game 'Blame your neighbor' was played. "Ah yeah, and who's responsible in the first place that she could enter heaven at all?" "If this goes on, we're under danger of a hostile management buy-out from our competition." "Keep objectivity, according to the newest infos this isn't any longer Anyanka, Destroyer of Continuity. Since there aren't any women in heaven, at least to the rules, her powers are completely useless." "Ah, and since when does Evil[tm] adhere to rules?" "It does, be assured, it does." "And what difference does it make at all?" The head security angel pointed to Michael, who attended the conference in traction bandages. "Look how badly pummeled our Dragon Slayer is!" The conference talk turned into a panangelium.
"If I might throw in a suggestion", a subaltern angel dared to interject, "if violence is futile, maybe trickery helps?"
He was yelled down.
A quarter hour later everyone agreed to a consensus that Anya could best be overcome by means of a subterfuge, and everybody gratulated the Honcho Chief Angel to his brilliant idea.

Anya read the message of the mailangel.
"Raised to the status of archangel? Room Ce000? I'm flying! Now these are guys that catch on my amenities fast!"
Anya pranced into the cellar level. She was expected by a solemnly dressed committee. "Dear Anya, please first drop your old wings and halo and put on these ceremonial horns. The band tromboned a flourish. "Ceremonial horns? Well did you evah! My, Lorne would get green with envy if he weren't anyway!" She teetered in front of a wall mirror.
"And now please take a stand exactly on the cross on the floor which symbolizes... uhm, what did it symbolize it again?" the Honcho Chief Angel hissed to one of his underlings. "Oh yes, the passion of our Lord Jesus, right."
Anya throw herself in posture. "And what will be next in prograaaaaa..."
A trap door opened. Several dollar signs and ampersands died away doppler-shifted.

3

"Anya, Anya, Anya. Troublemaker supreme. D'Hoffryn already dropped me a warning."
The Big Devil stood in front of Anya, shaking his head. The strongest devils together had managed to tie her up.
"So. As a punishment, first you get an extralong video-night, so that your conscience will prick you properly, and then we'll see what we have in store." Anya just answered with a bad swearing. Nanny demons panically held the ears of their little devils shut.

"Oh, can't remember that curse. Oh yes! That with pestilence was funny. I bet THAT hurt. But not more than your girlfriend hurted. Ssssst. And away he is. Yup, that one was my masterpiece, Halfrek said. I dunno, she always had to overdo. Owch, owch, owch. That wasn't so brilliant, he was suffering much to shortly. Alas, Cordelia. That was when the shit began to hit the fan. Where she might be, I heard she is a half-demoness now? And there, the worm. Did Buffy really have to get off with me? I'm just doing my work. Well then, she got a proper walloping in return."
Anya was indulging in curse-wise memories.

The Big Devil was on the end of his tether, as his video night evidently had backfired. "OK, back to the good old torturing board. Throw her into the cage with the Inju, shall he have fun with her."
Inju was a tentacle monster who liked to have fun with earth girls. And with the tentacles he surely didn't want to play I wanna hold your hand.
Anyas squeals yelled through hell.
"So there", the Big Devil mumbled. He evidently knew nothing about Anya.
Until a little subdevil came running: "The Inju went floppy!" The Big Devil came looking and was greeted by a wheezing Anya. "Do you all have no standing in hell? Even my Xandy lasted longer!" She disgustedly pointed to the Inju, who was lying on all eights, exhausted.
The Big Devil barricaded himself in his room and trampled on his Japanese Hentai Anime Collection, swearing: "Unrealistic! Con-art!" A subaltern demon trying to get through a scuttlebutt that Anya would be afraid of bunnies instantly got mauled for trying to be funny in hell.
Bureaucracies are incompetent everywhere. But there soon would be a change...

A mysterious figure sneaked to Anyas single cell, where the Big Devil had locked her away until he had found a decent torture method. A lock gently creaked.
Anya looked up to her visitor. "No, no, I'm not into lez again, dunno what Willow finds so great, that thing in heaven..." The visitor flinched. "...was a real disaster." "Don't you recognize me?" Anya pondered. Suddenly the bulb went on. "Proserpina, Hell Queen! My God..." "Urg. Could you please abandon that vocabulary?" "'Xuseme. My Satan, you look so derelict! Why that?" "Men. Screw up anything. I may scrub the cauldrons and scrape the sulphur off the walls, while the gents have fun. Last year we had to allot the coals! My, my, as long as I was in charge such snafu never happened! But they have to torture the tiniest pipsqueak. No sense for cosmic duties, only personal fun. Well, I only tortured the real big buggers, blasphemy or mass murder size, the rest was just hanging around as a shadow and didn't get in the way of anyone...Oh, and pardon me for nearly bringing apocalypse to earth, I thought it was a good idea then, and it all was Willows fault anyway...Anyanka, uhm, I happen to have a little wish..."
Anya did a grab into Proserpinas ultra-tiny G-string. "Iek! I thought you said you're not into lez anymore..." "Just for control. The rules, y'know. Had nothing but trouble with that in youknowwhere. Hope that didn't bring me out of practice." "Anyanka, you are the greatest." "Of course I am the greatest, I was only trying to socialize. Have been under humans too long. Your wish is granted!"
Razzmatazz fans surely would have missed a "Poof!" or likewise special effects, but Anyas powers were very primeval. If she changed history of the universe, the new history has ever been that way. (Don't even try to think about it, your brain will hurt. Read a nice book instead, Advanced Quantum Theory or suchlike.) Just her status as ex-goddess enabled Proserpina to recall the change.
"Now there, looks much more friendly." Proserpina smirked as she watched an ex-Big Devil hauling coal sacks. "If you might have a wish now..."
"Sordidly, none inside your might..."
"The rules..." "The rules..." Both women sighed. "Oh, could you get me a larger Inju?"

4

The Heavenly Intelligence was panicking. "There just was an unfriendly takeover in Hell! This is a disaster! If Hell ceases to be a place of eternal dread, all our propaganda will be for the birds and we are doomed! Who had this idiotic idea to send Anya to hell?" Hundreds of fingers immediately pointed to a certain subaltern who was defrocked on the spot and thrown through the same trapdoor Anya went. "Do we have a plan B? Anything?"
Another subaltern with a death wish stood up: "I'd like to suggest a plan that sounds so contrieved and idiotic that it might work. Is anyone here familiar with superhero comics?"

In Pit 7c there stood a periscope that allowed to watch life on Earth. Also this queue ran like hell when Anya arrived.
"I wonder if Xander is still alive. Yeah, glance to the left and right, you are being watched! Aaargh! I don't believe it! The scoundrel goes into a demon brothel!" Anya fumed when she heard Xander shyly explain to the Madame how unlucky he had been and if you can't beat em, join em. "Men! If you don't leash them...Now look at that whore! Purple hair and little antennae sprouting from her forehead. Now isn't that cuuuute? Dame, if I were you I'll shoot your tailor, that costume gives everyone eyesore! No, don't go into that separee...Bugger, now I have to refocus that gizmo again..." Anya fumbled with the periscope while Xander... fumbled too. "So you don't...smooch...want to eat me and turn into a giant snake or pussy or..." The harlot giggled. "Giant pussy, such fantasy. Eating you, yeah, that costs three pussies more. No, don't be such a stiff," she giggled again, "I'm mostly harmless. Oops!"
Xander didn't like the sound of that oops, not at all. He had been oopsed once too many.
And then his body suddenly began to feel... unfamiliar. He looked down...and screamed. The harlot tried to explain things. Anya, meanwhile online again, listened and bursted with laughter. "Gender-changing bacteria! Serves you right! The whore gave you instant-pussy VD! Yeah, and I wish you get twenty-eight days of PMS a month as a free extra!"
Xander burst into tears.
"I deserve it! I spurned the only woman who had real feelings for me! Ran away from the altar like a yellow just because I was afraid of some potential future conjured up by a demon! I wish..."

Epilogue

"Xaaaander! Liliths diapers need to be changed! And bring out the trash! And look at the lawn!" "Yes, Ayn!" Xander put a peg on his nose and handled the violet-colored mess.
It wasn't exactly a marriage made in heaven.
But then, that you'll only get on the screen.

The End