Joe's Note: This chapter originally clocked in at a hair over 1,300 words when I wrote it in 2007. It was a short transition chapter to get us from Cordelia to battle. Obviously I wasn't going to include a half-sized chapter in the revised story, so I substantially reworked and rewrote this chapter to suit the standards of the new incarnation. Now it weighs in at around 2,500 words which is much closer to the average of 2,500 for the entire story. Bit of working knowledge for those of you who aren't familiar with Kamen Rider or Den-O in particular. The DenLiner is a sleek bullet train that travels through time, and is also where the Imagin go when not actively in possession of Ryotaro. It has eight cars: four representing various parts of the legend that Momotaros is based on, one each for Urataros and Kintaros, and two for Ryutaros. It's the show's heavy artillery for when the person-sized monsters are defeated and pull a Power Rangers to grow to giant size. While Momotaros, Urataros, and Kintaros are allowed on the DenLiner because of their connection to Ryotaro, Ryutaros actually possesses a ticket of his own and states that his mission is to somehow take over the DenLiner and become the "conductor of the train of time". It's a plot line that - unless I missed something in the finale or something - was never resolved properly. ZeroLiner is another, similar train in the series that comes from a now-destroyed alternate future and serves as a base for Kamen Rider Zeronos.
Dedications & Thanks: To Howard, Nicholas, Alonsis2, Cyle, Marika, Tibor, Adrien, Arkantos59, bloodylord, Charles, Crygon20, DireSquirrel, Edward, enygma, Fablesrogue, George, Gerald, Glenn, Joseph, Kentucky Fried Dragon, Koby, MJ, Morgan, mpotato, PbookR, Roofcrawler, Wil, William, Ziryo, Beeknees, Darrell, David, erlking, Haematite, HaunzGruber, TheTenthAncestor, UncreativeName01, Zordmon, Abby, Lookshy, Roman, Warren, and Wesley for sponsoring me on Patre0n, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

Slouching in an armchair, Willow stared out the window as she considered her options for the rest of the night. Angel was here, meaning that Buffy and Cordelia had a new layer of protection that wasn't reliant on a finite supply of bullets. And Angel was used to ladies like whatever Buffy had managed to turn herself into for the evening, meaning that she and Xander no longer had to babysit an out of sorts bicentennial throwback. Assuming, of course, that she regained consciousness before the spell wore off. Which Willow wasn't betting on; her right hook wasn't as mean as Kintaros's or even Momotaros's but Buffy wasn't the Slayer at the moment. And Cordelia was curled up in front of the television, fingering one of the distressed spots on her jeans as she stared off at a spot a foot or so above and to the left of the television itself, pointedly ignoring Willow.

Which was fine with her, really. Willow scowled and reached across her body to pinch her right arm. That was Urataros's territory when it came to Climax Form, so it felt appropriate. 'I can't believe you up and kissed Cordelia like that, Urataros. What happened to behaving? At least a little? I wanted you to help me convince her to stay in the house instead of wandering around Sunnydale and getting herself killed. Not make her think that I'm gay and hot for her. That's just… eugh. It's Cordelia. I'm still the president of the We Hate Cordelia Club.'

'Which is exactly why you're hardly an unbiased perspective when it comes to the situation. Personality flaws and past behavior toward you aside, Cordelia is a sublime specimen of femininity.' Urataros took enough control of their shared body that he could turn Willow's head to look over at the cheerleader. 'Why shouldn't I want to kiss her? And she can't hate you nearly as much as your memories would seem to indicate, seeing as how she kissed you back.'

Scoffing, Willow forced Urataros down so that she could look away from the thoroughly distracted looking Cordelia. 'Which I'm hoping she'll miraculously forget about before I have to talk to her again. Because what if all these years of picking on me are just her weird way of displaying affection? What if she actually does like me? I don't even like girls!'

Urataros shrugged mentally, his ethereal fingers combing through her mind. 'You sure spend a lot of time staring at Cordelia for someone who doesn't like girls. And Harmony. And their friend Gwen.'

'I… you… ugh, be quiet.' Blushing darkly, Willow looked around the room wildly in search of something else to talk about. 'Enough about my possible - and questionable - interest in Cordelia. What are we going to do now? We can't just sit here all night hoping things resolve themselves.'

'I'm not entirely against spending more time with the delectable Miss Chase.'

'Shut up, you perverted turtle. There's an entire town full of demons I can go fight. We should go out there!'

'Go find the DenLiner! I still want to be conductor. Ooooh, or maybe Sakurai and Deneb are all mixed up like we are and the ZeroLiner is abandoned. We should go ride that! Ride ZeroLiner! Ride ride ride ride ride!'

'We should protect the others. Worry about the monsters as they come.'

'Cordelia!'

'Battle!'

'Trains!'

'Protect!'

Willow took her head in her hands and rubbed her temples as the four angry voices continued to argue their various stances, more with each other than out of any desire to convince her to go along with their idea. You know, maybe the idea of having Giles find some way to force them out into the void when this whole thing was over wasn't really such a bad thing. It beat going insane, right? "I wish I had someone like Hana to help keep these guys in line…"

Before Willow could realize what she'd just said, a bright yellow orb of energy came flying in through the living room window and slammed into her body. She gripped the armrests of her chair, back arching as the power flowed through her and a crack of lightning echoed through the inside of her head… and then everything went blissfully silent. Willow let out a slow breath as she relaxed back into the chair, looking over at a wide-eyed Xander and a vaguely curious Angel and Cordelia. Xander was the first to speak. "Was that what I think it was?"

'Advent… to the top.'

Grimacing, Willow rose from her seat and made her way over to the window. The fact that she was in control enough of her body to do so was a good sign… but thankfully her appearance remained as normal as it could be given her uncharacteristic outfit and dyed hair. Leaning one hand against the window as she checked her irises for good measure, Willow turned and looked back at Xander. "I think I might have accidentally just made a contract with Sieg."

Xander let out a sigh of relief, sagging a bit into his seat before offering her a tentative thumbs up. "I mean, it's not great that you have yet another Imagin inside of you now but if it's got to be anyone making you a party of six, at least it's someone that we know?"

Good point. There were like, sixty-odd canon Imagin - forty-nine episodes of Kamen Rider Den-O and some featured more than one evil Imagin, plus the five that had possessed Ryotaro and Yuto's Deneb - and she'd gotten the one remaining Imagin out of all of those options who didn't have outright malicious intent. That being said… Sieg was insanely powerful. Had he joined her existing mental menagerie, or wiped it out? 'Momo? Ura? Kin? Ryu? Everybody okay in there?'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

Willow waited for someone to elaborate but as the seconds and the silence dragged on, she ultimately ended up just shrugging in acknowledgement. They were there. They were under control. No more arguing, at least for the time being. And since she'd made such an open-ended wish to bring Sieg under contract, she probably didn't have to worry about him leaving - or flying to her past - any time soon.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Willow decided to take advantage of the silence in her head to try and come up with a cohesive plan of action. Someone had to stay here with Buffy and Cordelia, and someone had to go get Giles. While Xander didn't trust Angel - and Willow wasn't entirely certain of him herself - she was reasonably certain that he could be counted on to protect Buffy and her home. That just meant she had to figure out what to do with Xander: leave him behind or bring him with.

Ultimately, it came down to combat ability and she had it in spades while Xander was entirely reliant on his gun. It made absolutely no sense to bring somebody along that she'd have to protect for most of the night once he ran out of what few bullets he probably had left. Willow pulled the Rider Pass out of her pocket and tapped it against the top of the Terminal Buckle. So, she had a plan, then. Angel would protect the girls. Xander would… nominally stay behind to protect the girls also, but practically speaking be protected by Angel until things went back to normal. And she'd go get help.

"We need answers." Willow raised the Rider Pass and waved it back and forth slightly as Xander and Angel looked at her curiously. "One of us needs to go find Giles and let him know what's going on, and the other two need to stay here and protect Buffy and Cordelia. I'm going to go find Giles."

Xander grimaced and looked over at Angel. There was no lost love there, especially since Buffy had accidentally taken herself out of the fight because of her attempt to impress Angel. "Or we could, you know, go with Plan Xander: I go for help and you stay with Lady Useless, the catgirl, and the corpse."

Smirking, Willow twirled the Rider Pass between her fingers as she shook her head slowly. "Let's put it to a vote, then. One vote for your plan. Six votes for my plan. I win."

"Man, that's going to make winning arguments with you a lot harder from now on…"

Willow whistled softly as she strolled down the street. After some rather evasive conversation with Giles as to exactly what her costume was and what had happened to her, she'd managed to impart the information about Ethan. The Englishman had gone pale, muttered, then stormed out of the library. Given that he seemed rather angry and the chance of a renegade magical Englishman randomly showing up in the same town as Giles was somewhere between slim and none… Willow had a feeling the Watcher knew what had happened, how to fix it, and things would be back to normal soon enough.

The whistling died off as she turned a corner and came face-to-face with an army of monsters. They ranged from vampires like she was familiar with to what looked like Frankenstein to a couple garden-variety demons including one she recognized as one of the children she had taken out trick or treating that night. And at the front of the pack was a pale, blonde man in a leather duster. Buffy had described him well enough that Willow instantly knew who he was. "Spike."

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Another Brit. It was just a night for evil British people, it seemed. Spike tilted his head to the side and stared at her. "Did one of my fledglings sire you by accident or something? Because I'm all about family, but I've got this little thing I'm taking care of right now…"

Willow pondered that one for a moment. He thought she was a vampire? Maybe the Imagin were demon-like enough that she'd register as 'one of them' to demons? And what would Buffy think of her if that was the case? If she managed to keep the Imagin past the end of the night, of course. So much was still up in the air. "Um, no, I'm not one of your children. But we have met before. My friend's mother hit you with an axe."

That provoked a growl from Spike. "Are you actually stupid enough to admit that you're a friend of the Slayer… to William the Bloody and a whole army of demons? While you're out here all by your lonesome?"

"I wouldn't say that I'm stupid, no. I wouldn't say that I'm alone, either." Movement out of the corner of Willow's eye made her look over to find an unexpected form standing under a nearby streetlamp, wearing a brown houndstooth ulster and a deerstalker hat as he peered down at a pocket watch. Or... possibly she? That was an awful lot of blonde hair spilling out from under the hat. Wait. Focus. Past Man - now Past Woman for some reason - had never been suitably resolved on the show. Chances were she wouldn't be solving that mystery tonight either.

Willow's hand dipped toward the Terminal Buckle, brushing her fingers over the familiar rectangular shape. So it wasn't the Wing Buckle. Did she have to summon that separately somehow, or was that Sieg's way of conveying that he was going to sit this particular confrontation out? Then she stilled her hand before her finger could press one of the four colored buttons. In all the episodes, his bizarre hypnotic abilities had never appeared while he was Den-O, only when he was in possession of Ryotaro. So she'd have to cede control to him first, weed out the kids from the actual demons, and then transform.

Feeling a bit theatrical, Willow let her head dip forward to make the change even more dramatic. 'Ryutaros. You're up. We need to get rid of the kids so we can take on the actual demons without worrying about collateral damage.'

'You've got it, Yanagi-chan!'

The hairs on the back of Spike's neck rose as the brunette's head drooped before snapping back up. Instead of the hazel eyes he'd caught a glimpse of before, for some reason she now had bright purple irises. Adding to that changed feature, there was a matching purple streak of hair running down one side of her face. He winced; he knew that he'd smelled some sort of demon on her. What kind, though? Nothing he was familiar with, and he was fairly well traveled. Anything he could think of that could possess a human - or imitate one - had a far more noticeable demonic form than… that. Oh well. He had a veritable army with him. Whatever he was looking at, what were the odds that he couldn't manage to beat it?

"Mind if I defeat you? Can't hear you!"