Disclaimer: This is a work of Fan Fiction. I own none of the characters portrayed within this story. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel were created by Joss Whedon and are owned by Mutant Enemy. Further disclaimers will be provided on a need-to-know basis, at the end of each chapter. If a work is in the Public Domain, no copyright information will be provided. Likewise, disclaimers will not be provided for works that are only referenced or mentioned, as I believe this falls within the domain of fair use. However, an exception will be made for John Myers Myers' novel Silverlock; as the title has been borrowed for an original setting in this story, proper credit must be given to the man who came up with the name.
Silverlock Castle
There is no way to start this story without it seeming abrupt, for what happened was very abrupt. Abruptly, eight people felt a sharp push on their stomach. Their world seemed to collapse itself into a single line and, as they were pushed across this exo-universal plane, an entire pinstripe of universes flashed by.
But it only lasted a few seconds, and when it was over they were in a library roughly the size of the crater some of them had recently left behind. They stood squarely in the center, on top of a light purple rug that stretched out and underneath dozens and dozens of bookshelves. Looking up, they could see that the library contained many floors, each hanging back several meters from the edge of the one below. The result was like a very large cone, stretching out towards infinity in all directions, until distance compressed the distant floors into small slivers of wood that resembled a wall of toothpicks. It was impossible to say how far away or how large the roof was, except that it was very far away and very large. A glass circle sat in the center, but there was no sky to speak of. There was nothing there. It's hard to describe, or even remember—no one, at a later time, would be able to picture this scene again—but, outside that window, not even blackness existed. Even when they stared at it, their attention would always get drawn away, back to the wooden frame or the bookshelves. There was a window, but the void outside contained all the color of something just outside your field of vision.
"Where the hell are we?" asked Buffy.
"I don't know," said Xander. "Cleveland?"
"Where we are isn't even our main concern," said Giles. "It's curious, but unimportant. Right now, I'm more worried about who brought us here."
"You're not the only one," said Angel.
It was at this moment that Buffy realized Angel was there. She turned around, and there he was, accompanied by two strangers, one a young leather-clad woman with traces of blue dye in her hair, the other a balding black man with a face that suggested both toughness and sophistication. Looking over her own team, Buffy saw that Giles, Willow, Xander, and Spike were the only of her companions to join her.
"Spike!" exclaimed Buffy. "Aren't you… kinda dead? I mean, deader?"
"I was," said Spike. "But… well, it's a long story that involves jewelry and lawyers. Rather not get into it right now."
"Well, if that's the weirdest thing that happens today…" started Xander.
"Weird or not, I'm glad that army didn't follow us here," said Gunn.
"Well… yeah," said Angel, almost sounding disappointed. "But I still would have liked to slay that dragon…"
"An army and a dragon!?" said Xander, more interested in this fight than any mystical group-kidnappings. "And you never thought to mention them when you got to Sunnydale? 'Cause, we kinda woulda liked to know if another army was coming to kill us."
"What are you talking about?" said Angel. "The army wasn't following me last year."
"Don't play dumb with me" said Xander. "Or dumber, as the case may be. If you weren't here since last year, who brought the amulet that made Spike explode?"
Spike looked back and forth between Xander and Angel, then frowned as he realized he'd have to take sides.
"As much as I like to razz Angel," he said to Xander, "I feel I need to point out that you're an idiot. That was last year."
"I never thought I'd say this," said Giles, "but Xander was right. That incident was very recent."
"You don't think I can tell the difference between bursting into flames a year ago and bursting into flames 'very recently?'"
"I would have assumed you could before now, but there you go."
Gunn stepped between both parties. "Am I the only one that thinks time travel's involved here?"
"No," said Willow. "Uh, I mean 'no' as in, 'No, I, too, concur with the time travel hypothesis.' That would explain things. The only question is whose time we're in. If anyone's."
"The answer," said a strange British voice, "is that you are in no one's time."
The owner of the voice was well-hidden. The parties looked around, but this was mostly involuntary; nobody thought the voice would hide in that room if it planned to stay hidden after starting a conversation.
"That's odd," said Angel. "I can smell someone here, but I can't make out where. They're more than just invisible. It's as if they're… this is impossible."
"It is incorrect to say that anything is impossible," responded the voice. "However, I do apologize for not standing in your line of vision."
A single line made itself visible in the center of the room. Slowly, it began to expand into a square. A blanket or some other such clothing was draped over its body, though its head—for lack of a better term—was uncovered. Part of its brain seemed to peek out from under the cloth.
"I am A Square," the creature said. "This building is called Silverlock Castle, and it is not in your dimension."
"I can see that," said Xander.
"This is starting to remind me of Flatland," said Willow.
"That is not surprising," responded the Square, "for that book was based off my life, much as your own life has been chronicled in the television programs of other worlds." The square then, somehow, placed a copy of Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott on the table before him. His doing so without arms seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but in the seconds afterwards, this would be another image no one could recollect or comprehend.
"Sure," said Spike. "And you really expect us to believe that bull?"
"No," said the Square. "As I didn't at first believe of the Third Dimension's existence, neither do I expect you to believe in the existence of dimensions beyond yours."
"Some of us have learned to be open-minded about these things," said Xander. "Let's hear it."
The Square looked the party over—or, at least, it seemed to be looking them over; truth be told, it was hard to follow its paper-thin eyes from that angle. At any rate, it tilted around a bit before it began to speak.
"I am but a humble square, born in the Two-Dimensional world you know as Flatland. The particulars of my story can be found in the tome of that name, though, for this tale, you need know only of my contact with the Sphere. He was a being who came from the Third Dimension to tell me of the wonders of Spaceland. Yet my people were reluctant to accept this new knowledge, and my attempts to spread it led only to persecution.
"That is the end of my book, but not my story. So entranced was I by my memories of a Third Dimension that I dedicated my whole being to reentering it. It often felt futile, as I'm sure you can imagine, but not a minute had gone by that I did not try to recollect the nature of being ON something without being Northward of it. It seemed impossible, even to I, who had been to the Third Dimension. Yet, eventually, I succeeded, and found myself moving out of the Two-Dimensional confines of my cell and into the freedom of Spaceland.
"But this, which would more than satisfy any other denizen of my old world, failed to appease me. I began to dedicate my life to the study of each dimension, and how I might find the fourth one—the one that expanded beyond Spaceland. Having already traveled to the Third Dimension, it was only a few years before I accomplished this."
"The Fourth Dimension?" said Willow. "You mean, like, time?"
"And you learned to transcend time just by concentrating?" said Giles sceptically.
"Yes," said the Square. "But it was time of a linear sort. With time, an object's existence stretches across more than its visible, physical dimensions. But only in one dimension."
"And time goes in more than one dimension, then?" asked Spike.
"Of course," responded the Square. "Much as the lines of the First Dimension cannot comprehend the Second, neither can most of us, confined to a linear timeline, imagine a Second Temporal Dimension. However, as you are all limited to Three Dimensions, catching only glimpses of the Fourth, I will explain this in terms you can understand. If we look at things only from the perspective of the present, a world with only Three Dimensions, time stands still, a chronological dot like those of the Zeroth Spatial Dimension. If we acknowledge a Forth Dimension, even one we cannot travel through at will, time moves forward, like a line of the First Dimension. If we go beyond even that, if we stretch time itself into the Fifth Dimension, forcing our timeline to take on a Two-Dimensional form, then we must acknowledge what happens if time splits into other dimensions."
"Like alternate worlds," said Illyria. It wasn't a suggestion.
"No," said the Square. "Alternate worlds are the nature of the Sixth Dimension. The Fifth Dimension entails a divide in the timeline, whereas the Sixth is a new timeline entirely. If you went back in time, that would branch off an alternate timeline—a shift in the Fifth Dimension—while leaving your own world whole. This would be most noticeable if you created a major change in history—if you prevented Socrates' birth, for example. However, even your presence in that world for one fraction of a second would create a branch, albeit one that would resemble your own world in most ways. Of course, many splits can occur naturally, without time travel."
"So, if someone decided to, say, use magic to alter the past," said Willow, "and, in that past, I became a vampire, then that world would exist parallel to ours in the Fifth Dimension?"
"Precisely," said the Square.
"Ah," said Willow. "Because, I've already seen that. I pulled my vamp self from that world and everything."
"Then you have more experience in this area then I have suspected," said the Square. "No doubt, then, you are aware that the Sixth Dimension is not a split in time, but rather a completely new timeline, existing ON but not Northward of yours. Say you turn on your TV, or open a book. What you are witnessing there is another world—a Sixth Dimension."
"Pardon me?" said Giles, again, sceptically.
"So you're saying the Sixth Dimension isn't real?" asked Xander.
"The Sixth Dimension isn't real!" exclaimed the Square. "Why, were you not listening to my own story? It's as real as the Fifth! My world was chronicled in yours as a book, and yours is chronicled in other worlds. I do not know why this is, though I suspect it may result from memories that are rendered latent by reincarnation, which is independent of dimensions. An alternate theory suggests that artists possess a special power to bring forth foreign worlds through their words and images, though I, myself, find this possibility a remote one. But I digress—my point in bringing you here is to tell you that you will be going to many other worlds. You will likely recognize some of them yourself."
"Wait… we'll be going where?" asked Gunn. "When did we agree to this?"
"You haven't yet, though you will," said the Square. "Or all universes shall die."
There was a brief pause of unpleasant silence as this news sunk in.
"So… all of them, huh?" said Buffy. "That's a lot of apocalypses."
A brief pause, because each of our party was an old hand at this sort of thing.
"It is," said the Square. "During my pilgrimage through the other dimensions, I met many beings whose knowledge of other worlds and their makings exceeded my own. I was eager to learn; and learn I did, from many of the greatest minds in any existence. Yet I soon realized that the multiverse's existence is a frail one, and one that must be protected. Alas! Never did I dream that existence could be so fragile! But it is so; I have learned that reality is not self-sustaining. Like all entities, it requires energy to survive. In this case, the energy is provided by seven… but they have no name. They predate even language. Yet I was told to call them Batteries, because that word best describes their nature. There are seven Batteries, each one held within the life of one being somewhere in one of the many universes. The beings, I am told, should be called the Bearers. The Battery survives as the Bearer does, drawing energy from their life force and soul. Then, when the Bearer dies, the Battery is taken by an all-knowing being known only as the Faceless One, who will use its energy to sustain the universe. The world can survive only as long as this immortal… but again I err. He is not immortal, for he has been killed by the one you know as the First Evil."
"What, we have to deal with it again?" asked Xander. "We just got finished thwarting it."
"Then you should be grateful for that one familiarity in this romance," said the Square, "for there will be many new, frightening challenges to come. Fortunately, you will not be alone. There are others wiser than I with whom I have gathered to help solve the problem of our impending doom. You can discuss these matters with them. Please follow me."
Then the Square once again slipped into the Fourth Dimension. A few minutes later, probably when he remembered that the Scoobies were still stuck in "Spaceland," he slipped back in, and he hopefully looked sheepish, but that was hard to tell.
"If you would prefer the door, of course, we can use that path."
*
Inside the room sat three of the greatest minds ever held in what was once presumed to be the world of fiction.
Nibbler, from Futurama. A being whose race had existed since before the Universe began.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, from Harry Potter. Said to be the greatest Wizard of his age.
And Mr. Peabody, from Rocky and Bullwinkle. Perhaps the world's smartest dog.
"So, you're here," said Dumbledore. "I assume that Square has explained the dire circumstances to you?"
"End of the world and all that?" said Xander. "Yeah, we got the gist of it."
"The gist is just the beginning!" said Nibbler. "With the Faceless One gone, there is no one left to redistribute the Batteries once their Bearers die. You have, at most, several decades before one of them expires and the universe will go out, like a light bulb in a strong wind."
"You mean a candle in a strong wind," said Giles.
"No," said Nibbler. "I mean the universe will shatter violently into a trillion pieces, like a light bulb in a very strong wind."
"But we have a long time, right?" said Buffy. "I mean, what are the chances of these guys dying any time soon?"
"Quite high, actually," said Mr. Peabody. "The First Evil is trying to kill them as we speak. Remember, Nibbler said you had several decades at the most. The actual length of time will likely be much, much shorter."
"Okay, so we're in a hurry," said Angel. "I assume you want us to revive this Faceless Guy?"
"I wish it was that easy," said Dumbledore. "But no, I'm afraid that he can't be brought back, no matter what magic you use. Don't think we haven't tried, but, even with access to the most powerful magic created by any mind, we could not restore life to him. The First Evil has came into a lot of powerful allies lately, and it's managed to prevent anyone from resurrecting him. I'm afraid the only way to save the universe is to track down the seven Bearers and convince them to become martyrs."
"So that's all," said Spike. "Find the right seven guys and kill them? Wait, no… we don't know who they are! So maybe we had better kill everyone we come across until the universe stops falling apart. Or is that what you want? Really now, how stupid do you think we are? For all I know, you are the First Evil, or some other sort of spirit."
"He's right," said Xander. "The First Evil turned into dead people, maybe he had a neglected brother that turns into characters from books and cartoons. The Second Evil. And your story doesn't even make any sense. You just said killing these guys would trigger the apocalypse, so shouldn't we be trying to make them, y'know, not dead?"
"Could you please let me finish?" said Dumbledore? "Thank you. Not that I don't appreciate a healthy dose of skepticism, mind you, but I am a busy man, and cannot spend all day explaining this. Now, as I was saying, you'd have to convince them to become martyrs. They don't actually have to die—but they need to think they're going to." Dumbledore pushed back his chair, then pointed to a large, diamond-encrusted golden door in the distance. "Behind that door is the Pool of Life. It is the oldest object in the known multiverse, and the pool from which all life and matter stem. It is this pool that the Faceless One had always released the Batteries into after each Bearer's death. The pool absorbed the energy the Bearers had absorbed in life, thus renewing its own energy and allowing it to continue sustaining existence. Afterwards, the Batteries would be sent back out into the multiverse, and their next Bearer. Now that the Faceless One is dead, however, the Batteries won't be redirected into the pool. Our only hope, then, is to make sure they're already in the pool when they're released. Fortunately, a safeguard has been built in for such an emergency. If the Bearers are submerged in the pool, and they are drowned, the Batteries will be released. Of course, since the Pool of Life is the source of… well, life, it will revive the Bearers once its energy has peaked—in other words, once all seven Batteries are absorbed into it. Unfortunately, the plan is not without flaws. The Pool of Life can only work if those entering it believe they will die, and they cannot be forced into it."
"Why?" asked Giles.
"That much, we cannot tell you."
"That's very convenient."
"I agree. Now, does everyone understand their mission?"
"Mostly," said Angel. "Except for the part where we go into other universes, many of which may have had no concept of magic before our arrival, and convince some people to kill themselves because we say so."
"You'll figure something out," said Mr. Peabody. "Now, if you'd hurry, Mr. Square is ready to take you to the worlds the Bearers are in. Unfortunately, this is all we know about their identities. The only way to recognize a Bearer is with a Slayer. It is a very specific method of detection, I know, but the Faceless One thought it would protect them from being found by any unsavory characters, since the Slayers rarely traveled between worlds, and were usually heroes. Thus, their Extrasensory Battery Detection—or ExBaDet, for short—would be available as a last resort if we needed it, but could not be used by evil to find or threaten the Bearers. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the First Evil would be able to detect Batteries itself, if it transformed into a Slayer. Now, if you want to save the Universe, Buffy needs to go, and her companions need to be people she can work with. Because Square can bend time as well as dimensions, since the Sixth Dimension cannot be crossed until the Fourth has, he can drop you off in each world before the Bearer is killed. Do be careful, though; each world's time flow is constant. If the Battery is destroyed, you won't be able to go back again and save it."
"Um, excuse me, Mr. Dog," said Giles. "Not to sound rude, but how do you know this?"
"I know everything," responded Mr. Peabody. "After all, I am a genius."
*
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*
Mr. Peabody was created by Ted Key, and is owned by Bullwinkle Studios.
Nibbler and Futurama were created by Matt Groening, and are owned by 20th Century Fox Television and Gracie Films.
Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter were created by J.K. Rowling and are published by Bloomsbury.
