The Ringworld is the property of Larry Niven. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.
They made it back before Dawn.
Willow and Riley had returned to her apartment. They were in the process of changing clothing when a news report caught their attention. A nearby office park had been destroyed in what looked like a terrorist attack. The building on the television looked familiar.
"We were just there!" Willow said. She had finished her shower finally getting the chunks of demon dog out of her hair. She was sitting near the kitchen table in a white bathrobe. Her place was a mess. There was still blood on the floor from last night.
"I'm never getting my deposit back." Willow thought as she dried her hair.
"Well at least all of the unicorns are gone." On their way back to her apartment, Willow had noticed that the piles of dead unicorns in front of her building were gone. She didn't know if the city had come and collected them or they had simply evaporated. The missing unicorns got her thinking.
"This whole mess is Ouroboros's fault." Willow thought. The dominant mind that occupied the Ringworld superconductor grid had searched for a way to bind a human soul to its mechanical structure. Every time it failed, a stack of dead unicorns appeared. In the process it broke the rules of magic. Willow thought of ways to fix the situation. Magic was broken, Buffy was a baby and Twilight was on their ass. She needed a one fix solution that would solve all of her problems at once.
She needed a way to reboot magic. That way she could get Buffy back and show Twilight that magic and magic users were not the problem.
"How do you reboot magic?" Willow thought. She sat back down at the kitchen table overcome with despair.
Riley Finn came out of the shower. He wore a thick white towel around his waist. His skin was still moist. His hard, toned chest muscles rippled beneath his soft warm pink skin. Willow smiled to herself.
"First Dracula, now him." She thought. "For a gay woman, I'm getting a lot of guy action."
"I've got to decide what to do next. " Riley said as he ran another towel over his wet hair. "I've got to think of a way to infiltrate back into Twilight and contact Samantha. She must be crazy with worry by now." Riley walked over to Willow and placed the Gem of Amara on the table before her.
"I think you need this." He said to her. Riley smiled at her briefly. "Sorry for last night. Just doing my job sounds lame, but…"
"All is forgiven." Willow said as she picked up the ring and held it in her hand. "Speaking of half naked, I think Xander left some clothing in the bed room."
"Oh." Riley said suddenly self conscious. "I'll see what I can find." He said as he made his way to the bedroom.
Willow concentrated on the Gem of Amara. White and gold light sparkled off the emerald at its center. That got her thinking. White light entered the emerald and was broken down into its component elements. The Gem, like any prism, extracted the primary colors from background light. Willow wondered if the effect stopped at light. She knew crystals were routinely used in spell casting. Did the prism effect of crystals extend to magic as well? She knew she was on to something. She concentrated on the crystal letting it draw her in. She made the connection. Her mind had what it was looking for.
The room began to shake.
"It's always something …" Willow thought as she stood. She realized she was still in her bathrobe. She closed her bathrobe and wrapped it tightly. She had forgotten to put on underwear.
The air in the room shimmered as the walls vibrated at a frequency that could only be heard by atoms. White fog came out of nowhere and pooled in the center of the room. Everything got cold, cold and still. A spot at the center of the room no wider than the width of a human blood cell, was dragged down towards absolute zero. In that sacred spot, the wavelength of atoms grew longer and longer. For a length of time that could only be measured by its uncertainty the temperature dropped to exactly absolute zero. The wavelength of atoms there became infinite. Something arced between Willow's apartment and Twilight.
The explosion was white light and snow. The windows to the apartment were blown outward. The walls cracked as every car alarm in a ten mile radius activated. Willow's ears rang for the longest. Smoke rolled off the back of something hunched over in the center of her living room.
Dracula unfurled his cape as he stood to full height. His eyes were blood red, his skin was chalk white. There flecks of human skin and blood on his shirt. The Buffy Baby was curled safely in his arms. She looked sleepy.
"What is he doing here?!" Dracula asked Willow. For a moment she thought he was talking about Riley until she followed his gaze and saw the flickering image of Spike behind her.
"Times up red. I need the Gem, now!" Spike said. Willow could see Buffy standing in the background near him and two Dawns. She didn't need to be told twice. Splattered on the console behind Spike was something bloody and wet. Someone had just died there. Willow could hear something horrible screeching in the background. She could hear equipment being destroyed.
"Now Willow!, Now! Toss the damn bloody ring!" Spike was near panic.
She didn't hesitate. Willow flicked the Gem of Amara through the portal. Spike caught it in mid air and slipped it on his finger. Her eyes turned to Buffy. She could see the scars on Buffy's face. Buffy looked tired and worn down. Buffy caught Willow's eye for a brief moment as an understanding passed between them. The Buffy on the Ringworld would never return to Earth. Willow could tell that she didn't really didn't want to be alive at all. The portal closed between them cutting them off.
Dracula had moved in close to Willow and handed the Buffy Baby off to her.
"Spike." Dracula muttered. "Is he still telling people I owe him money?"
He reviewed the wreckage of the Twilight field office with amusement and disgust. They tried to hold both the count and the slayer here. He was surprised that the body count was not higher. He hit the track mouse with the palm of his hand forcing the display to zoom in on the burning wreckage of the kiddy prison where they held the slayer. He played the video file with the sound at full blast. He wanted to hear every scream and the sound of every voice spoken. Near the end both Dracula and the Buffy Baby disappeared in a flash of light and fire. Three foot concrete bunkers had been shattered into rubble. He tapped the screen controls and froze the image of the burning and wrecked room.
Angel leaned back in his chair and exhaled as a way to show his frustration. What was the Slayer up to?