Title: The Ultimate Scooby Gang, Part 2
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author
EMail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.
Spoilers: Anything goes
Summary: From across the multiverse, the most powerful
incarnations of the Scooby Gang have been gathered to
battle the Ultimate Evil. But first, they have to get
along with each other.
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their
owners who I'm too lazy to list.
"Oops?" Cordelia echoed. "What do you mean, 'oops'?"
"Well, um, I'm kinda new at this y'know," Dawn began to
explain.
"Dawn, what did you do?"
"I just... misplaced them," Dawn told her.
"Misplaced them?" Cordelia yelped.
"Don't worry, I'll fix it right now."
"Wait, we've already used up our Deus Ex Machina," the
junior Power cautioned the Key. "Doing any more will give
the Bad Guys a freebie."
"Is this freebie limited by scale?" Dawn asked. "Y'know,
I do a big thing, they do a big thing? Or I do a small
thing and they get to do a small thing?"
"I don't know." Cordelia thought about that for a moment.
"Hmm, everything I've seen and heard seems to support the
idea."
"Cool. Then I just need to do a little itty bitty thing
to fix this," Dawn reassured her.
"Fine, but I don't think my bosses are going to be happy
with this," Cordelia agreed reluctantly. "What are you
going to do?"
"Well, first I gotta find out where I sent them."
Cordelia just groaned, foreseeing this as not going well.
***
"Horrible? What do you mean horrible?" Daphne said
indignantly. "I'll have you know that purple is a royal
color."
"In my experience," the Daphne look-a-like - she said her
name was Buffy - retorted, "royalty is royally overrated.
And that look is sooo sixties anyway."
"Oh, and the white skin-tight leather from neck to toe
is really classy, right?" Daphne replied, giving Buffy a
skeptical eye up and down to emphasize her point. "You
look like a complete skank. Am I right, Freddie?
Freddie?"
Freddie had tuned out the fashion argument, which he
found completely yawn-worthy. Instead, his entire
attention was taken up admiring how Buffy's outfit seemed
to show off every curve of her body without displaying a
square inch of skin. He wondered what Daphne would look
like in...
"FREDDIE!"
Freddie attention snapped back to the present. He found
himself with an irate Daphne glaring at him.
"Freddie, what are you..." Daphne began.
Freddie was saved by a pair of familiar screams. An
instant later, Shaggy and Scooby came racing around a
corner behind Buffy towards them. They came to a
screeching stop when Buffy spun to face them, her axe
held at the ready. Freddie found it odd that he had
forgotten that she was carrying the thing, especially
considering that she had been holding it in one hand the
entire time since she had appeared.
"Whoa, Daph! It's us!" Shaggy exclaimed to Buffy. Then he
spotted Daphne over Buffy's shoulder. "Uh, Daphne, why
are there two of you?"
"Hey! I'm Daphne," Daphne told him. "That's Buffy."
"Hey," Buffy greeted, taking her axe from the ready
position and resting it's head on her shoulder.
"What's going on, guys?" Freddie asked. Given all the
screaming they were doing, he already had a fair idea,
but he had to ask anyway. "What was all the screaming
about?"
"We ran into the Ghost!" Shaggy said.
"Reah! The Rhost!" Scooby echoed.
"The Rhost, I mean Ghost?" Buffy repeated. She perked up,
seemingly interested. "What Ghost?"
"Like, the Ghost of El Rapier!" Shaggy explained, "He's
right behind us." As if to prove his point, spooky
moaining filled the corridor they were in. A glowing
figure wielding a sword stepped around the same corner
that Shaggy and Scooby came from.
Freddie felt a chill. Rationally, he knew that this guy
was probably just another crook in a mask. But
undermining rationality was that there were a couple
occaisions where he and the gang had run into genuine
spooks.
If nothing else, that sword looked really sharp.
"Ooooooh, leave mortals," the Ghost of El Rapier moaned,
"or prepare to face eternal da..."
"I'm so not impressed," Buffy interupted. Barging her
way past Shaggy and Scooby, she approached El Rapier. "Is
this Zorro wannabe supposed to be scary?"
El Rapier waved his luminescent sword at Buffy as she
stalked - there was no other description for it - toward
him. "Beware, mortal, the blade of El Rapier!"
In a blur of motion, Buffy replied with a one-handed
swing of her axe. El Rapier's blade fell to the floor,
severed neatly at the hilt.
"I will make your torment eternal!" El Rapier moaned. He
might have sounded more impressive if he didn't sound so
nervous, or wasn't backing away from Buffy.
"Ha! I'd like to see you try," Buffy taunted back.
As if in reply, there was a brilliant green flash and
Buffy was suddenly gone. The Scooby gang's response was
understandable.
"YOINKS!" They ran.
***
"That's your 'little thing'?" Cordelia asked.
"Hey, hey, I'm still working on it," Dawn said quickly.
"At least I'm getting better at this."
"The other Powers are sooo going to kill me."
***
"Okay, I think we lost them," Willow said to Alice.
"How can you be sure?" Alice asked. "This place twists
and turns about so. It makes no sense." She sounded
amazingly like Buffy did during that Halloween night when
they all turned into their costumes, complete with bad
English accent. Of course, that shouldn't have surprised
Willow since Alice looked like Buffy, too.
"Now that's not true," Willow disagreed. "Now admittedly
the rules of this world are way different from the one we
came from, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. To
figure them out, be observant and sees what works and
what doesn't."
"Have you figured out what these rules are?" Alice asked.
"Um, no," Willow admitted. This world was monkeying with
her magical senses. The few bits of Lewis Carrol that she
could remember was barely helping.
"Hmph!" Alice folded her arms and looked all haughty.
Any reply Willow might have made was put on hold by a
brilliant green flash. Suddenly, Willow was looking at
two Alices. Or was that two Buffies? The newcomer was
dressed head to toe in white skin-tight leather and
carrying the Scythe.
The newcomer took one look at Alice and groaned. "Aw, not
again!"
"Buffy?" Willow said.
"Willow?" the newcomer replied, her head turning to
Willow. That was all the confirmation Willow needed.
"You're alive!" they exclaimed at the same time and fell
into each others' arms.
"What's with the hair and hospital gown?" Buffy asked
after a moment.
"Oh, I got these after blowing up Sunnydale," Willow told
her friend.
"After you what?" Buffy replied, baffled. "Sunnydale was
still there last I looked."
"Making sense indeed," Alice sniffed. "I'm better off on
my own." Unnoticed by the reunited friends, she wandered
off on her own.
***
"I'm not sure if that helps," Cordelia said.
"I know what I'm doing," Dawn reassured her. "Trust me on
this."
"Like I got a choice?"
***
"So... what do we know about our guest?" General Jack
O'Neil, CO of Stargate Command, asked. He was seated at
the head of table in the SGC's briefing room. Seated
around the table was SG-1, or SG-1b as he liked to think
of it since Carter had taken it over. On the briefing
room table was a surprisingly huge array of weapons and
gadgetry that their "guest" had hidden on his person.
"Sir, I think Lieutenant Harris should answer that,"
Carter replied. "Since our guest is his duplicate after
all, I had him interview our guest."
"Harris?" O'Neil prompted.
"Well, sir, he's a handsome guy who has some funny ideas
about which service is better," Harris groused. "He
claimed that I should have gone with Marines or Army
instead of the - and I quote - 'namby pamby' Air Force.
Considering he never joined up himse... OW!"
That last came from Lieutenant Emily Francisco kicking
Harris under the table. O'Neil decided to ignore it.
Harris was too much like himself as it was. "Get to the
point, Harris," O'Neil prodded.
"Yes, sir," Harris winced. His Tectonese squad member
must have kicked him pretty hard. "As near as we can
tell, he's from a parallel reality."
"Oh, one of those," O'Neil groaned. "Lemme guess... his
world's been over run by the Goa'uld and he's here to
warn us of impending doom. Am I right?"
"Actually, no sir," Harris replied. "Our guest has never
heard of the Goa'uld, his world is just fine, and he has
no idea how he wound up here."
"Well, that's a change," O'Neil said relieved.
"Although he did mention that in his world," Harris
continued, "my... his hometown of Sunnydale had fallen
into the world's biggest pothole. I'm glad that hasn't
happened here."
O'Neil's face suddenly froze as he remembered a bit of
news he saw while SG-1 had been offworld. Until now, he
hadn't made the connection. And SG-1 hadn't had a chance
yet to catch up on the news...
"Sir? Is something wrong?" Carter asked, concerned.
***
"Hey, I found Xander," Cordelia announced.
"That's great," Dawn replied absently, busy with another
task. "Hold on a sec."
"What are you doing?"
"Recruiting."
"Recuiting who? There are only supposed to be three of
them," Cordelia looked at what Dawn was doing. "Him? Why
him?"
"What, it's not obvious?"
***
"You're not my Buffy."
"And you're not my Willow."
"Wow, this is depressing," Willow sighed. It took some
note comparing, but they figured out pretty quickly that
they weren't quite from the same universe. That meant all
their friends were still dead including their versions of
each other.
"Tell me about it," Buffy agreed.
"Okay," Willow said. "What appears to have happened is
that our timelines diverged after I came back from the
Dark Side. It's not like we haven't met people from
divergent timelines before. There was the vamp me."
"Is that possible?" Buffy mused. "I always thought that
time was linear. Linear like a ball of yarn maybe, but
still linear. Things like your vampire double I just
chalked up Wish-induced detours. Heck, I just escaped
from a twenty thousand year long time loop."
"Twenty thousand years?" Willow echoed in confusion.
"Well, it's kind of hard to put an exact date on things,"
Buffy began. Seeing that Willow's confusion was not
alleviated, Buffy sighed. "I suppose I should start at
the..."
Buffy was interupted by wooping noise. As they watched,
a phone booth with blacked out windows appeared in front
of them. Smoke was emanating from various nooks and
crannies.
"Funny, I don't recall Lewis Carrol ever mentioning any
cheshire phone booths," Willow commented.
The door of the phone booth opened and a coughing figure
stumbled out. "Oh dear, oh dear," the man said, regarding
the smoking phone booth. He was immediately familiar.
"This will not do. Won't do at all." He took notice of
the two girls staring at him, "I say, young ladies,
perhaps you could help me. I am..."
"GILES?" Buffy and Willow chorused.
***
"You've got to be kidding," Cordelia said doubtfully.
"That's not even really Giles. ANY version of Giles."
"Hey, if it walks like Giles and talks like Giles and
acts like Giles..." Dawn shrugged. "Now, where's Xander?"
***
"I thought you might like to know that I made a few phone
calls," Harris told his double. "Willow and the others
are just fine, even if Sunnydale has still turned into a
giant pothole."
"I'm glad for you," Xander replied. He flicked a piece of
his lunch at Harris. It hit one of the lasers criss-
crossing his cell bars and was promptly annihilated. "Can
I get out now?"
"The General says I can let you out," Harris replied as
he shut off the lasers. "You'll still be restricted to a
couple levels here, though."
"Fine. Can I get my stuff back?"
"You mean your portable armory?" Harris snorted as he
opened the cell door. "Don't push your luck. How'd you
get all that stuff under your coat anyway?"
"Call it a trade secret," Xander the immortal told his
mortal alternate as the former stepped out of the cell.
"By the way, who's your girlfriend?"
"Lieutenant Francisco is my teammate, not my girlfriend,"
Harris replied irratibly. "Why does everybody assume
that?"
"Because she's pretty, female, and not human?" Xander
suggested. "Not to mention the same rank you are."
"Harris, he has a point," Francisco said, speaking for
the first time. "You do seem to attract those types."
"Name one, Francisco," Harris challenged.
"Well, there was that one time with Osiris..."
"But not in front of the guy who doesn't have clearance,"
Harris added quickly, nodding to Xander.
"So... are you available?" Xander asked Francisco.
"Pardon?" Francisco asked in confusion.
"For a date I mean," Xander explained. "When this all
settles down, maybe we could go for a coffee together or
something."
"Oh, now wait a..." Harris began to interupt. Francisco
elbowed him. "Oof!"
"I might be available," Francisco said slowly. "But how
do I know you won't disappear into another dimension
again? You don't even know how you got here,"
"Hey, for all I know, I could be whisked home right now,"
Xander replied.
There was a lull in the conversation as if all three were
waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. After some
time, Harris finally broke the silence.
"Man, that usually works."
***
"Hey, you're not going to 'port Xander to the others?"
Cordelia asked in confusion.
"Nope." Dawn replied.
"Why not?"
"Just watch."
***
"So, if you're not Rupert Giles, who are you?" Buffy
asked slowly.
"I am a Time Lord called the Watcher," the Giles double
said.
"The Watcher," Buffy repeated. "Of course."
"You're a Time Lord?" Willow asked. "Like the Doctor?"
"Doctor who?" Buffy asked in confusion.
"Exactly," Willow said absently.
"Ah yes, the Doctor," the Watcher said bemused. "I take
it you've met my errant nephew?"
"Yes, he visited Sunnydale once," Willow told him.
"Hey, I never met any doctor!" Buffy said indignantly.
"Oh, I guess that's another divergence between your
timeline and mine," Willow soothed Buffy.
"I take it you young ladies are from parallel timelines?"
the Watcher inquired.
"Yeah, but we don't know how we got here," Willow told
the Time Lord. "Hey, since you're here, could you give
us a lift home in your TARDIS?" She patted the phone
booth's side.
"What's a Tardy? Turdee?" Buffy asked, still confused.
"Absolutely not!" the Watcher said indignantly, ignoring
Buffy.
"Why not?" Willow asked. "The Doctor takes passengers."
"Unlike the Doctor," the Watcher said slowly, as if to a
little child, "I do not take passengers. I do not
interfere. I watch, which is how I got my name."
"Oh..." Willow said, downcast.
"Besides," the Watcher continued. "My TARDIS was damaged
by a chance encounter with a filament of anti-dimensional
energy. It's not going anywhere."
***
"Um, oops?" Dawn repeated.
Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka the Evil Author
EMail Address: EvilAuthor@aol.com
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere. Just tell me if you do.
Spoilers: Anything goes
Summary: From across the multiverse, the most powerful
incarnations of the Scooby Gang have been gathered to
battle the Ultimate Evil. But first, they have to get
along with each other.
Disclaimer: Characters and concepts belong to their
owners who I'm too lazy to list.
"Oops?" Cordelia echoed. "What do you mean, 'oops'?"
"Well, um, I'm kinda new at this y'know," Dawn began to
explain.
"Dawn, what did you do?"
"I just... misplaced them," Dawn told her.
"Misplaced them?" Cordelia yelped.
"Don't worry, I'll fix it right now."
"Wait, we've already used up our Deus Ex Machina," the
junior Power cautioned the Key. "Doing any more will give
the Bad Guys a freebie."
"Is this freebie limited by scale?" Dawn asked. "Y'know,
I do a big thing, they do a big thing? Or I do a small
thing and they get to do a small thing?"
"I don't know." Cordelia thought about that for a moment.
"Hmm, everything I've seen and heard seems to support the
idea."
"Cool. Then I just need to do a little itty bitty thing
to fix this," Dawn reassured her.
"Fine, but I don't think my bosses are going to be happy
with this," Cordelia agreed reluctantly. "What are you
going to do?"
"Well, first I gotta find out where I sent them."
Cordelia just groaned, foreseeing this as not going well.
***
"Horrible? What do you mean horrible?" Daphne said
indignantly. "I'll have you know that purple is a royal
color."
"In my experience," the Daphne look-a-like - she said her
name was Buffy - retorted, "royalty is royally overrated.
And that look is sooo sixties anyway."
"Oh, and the white skin-tight leather from neck to toe
is really classy, right?" Daphne replied, giving Buffy a
skeptical eye up and down to emphasize her point. "You
look like a complete skank. Am I right, Freddie?
Freddie?"
Freddie had tuned out the fashion argument, which he
found completely yawn-worthy. Instead, his entire
attention was taken up admiring how Buffy's outfit seemed
to show off every curve of her body without displaying a
square inch of skin. He wondered what Daphne would look
like in...
"FREDDIE!"
Freddie attention snapped back to the present. He found
himself with an irate Daphne glaring at him.
"Freddie, what are you..." Daphne began.
Freddie was saved by a pair of familiar screams. An
instant later, Shaggy and Scooby came racing around a
corner behind Buffy towards them. They came to a
screeching stop when Buffy spun to face them, her axe
held at the ready. Freddie found it odd that he had
forgotten that she was carrying the thing, especially
considering that she had been holding it in one hand the
entire time since she had appeared.
"Whoa, Daph! It's us!" Shaggy exclaimed to Buffy. Then he
spotted Daphne over Buffy's shoulder. "Uh, Daphne, why
are there two of you?"
"Hey! I'm Daphne," Daphne told him. "That's Buffy."
"Hey," Buffy greeted, taking her axe from the ready
position and resting it's head on her shoulder.
"What's going on, guys?" Freddie asked. Given all the
screaming they were doing, he already had a fair idea,
but he had to ask anyway. "What was all the screaming
about?"
"We ran into the Ghost!" Shaggy said.
"Reah! The Rhost!" Scooby echoed.
"The Rhost, I mean Ghost?" Buffy repeated. She perked up,
seemingly interested. "What Ghost?"
"Like, the Ghost of El Rapier!" Shaggy explained, "He's
right behind us." As if to prove his point, spooky
moaining filled the corridor they were in. A glowing
figure wielding a sword stepped around the same corner
that Shaggy and Scooby came from.
Freddie felt a chill. Rationally, he knew that this guy
was probably just another crook in a mask. But
undermining rationality was that there were a couple
occaisions where he and the gang had run into genuine
spooks.
If nothing else, that sword looked really sharp.
"Ooooooh, leave mortals," the Ghost of El Rapier moaned,
"or prepare to face eternal da..."
"I'm so not impressed," Buffy interupted. Barging her
way past Shaggy and Scooby, she approached El Rapier. "Is
this Zorro wannabe supposed to be scary?"
El Rapier waved his luminescent sword at Buffy as she
stalked - there was no other description for it - toward
him. "Beware, mortal, the blade of El Rapier!"
In a blur of motion, Buffy replied with a one-handed
swing of her axe. El Rapier's blade fell to the floor,
severed neatly at the hilt.
"I will make your torment eternal!" El Rapier moaned. He
might have sounded more impressive if he didn't sound so
nervous, or wasn't backing away from Buffy.
"Ha! I'd like to see you try," Buffy taunted back.
As if in reply, there was a brilliant green flash and
Buffy was suddenly gone. The Scooby gang's response was
understandable.
"YOINKS!" They ran.
***
"That's your 'little thing'?" Cordelia asked.
"Hey, hey, I'm still working on it," Dawn said quickly.
"At least I'm getting better at this."
"The other Powers are sooo going to kill me."
***
"Okay, I think we lost them," Willow said to Alice.
"How can you be sure?" Alice asked. "This place twists
and turns about so. It makes no sense." She sounded
amazingly like Buffy did during that Halloween night when
they all turned into their costumes, complete with bad
English accent. Of course, that shouldn't have surprised
Willow since Alice looked like Buffy, too.
"Now that's not true," Willow disagreed. "Now admittedly
the rules of this world are way different from the one we
came from, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. To
figure them out, be observant and sees what works and
what doesn't."
"Have you figured out what these rules are?" Alice asked.
"Um, no," Willow admitted. This world was monkeying with
her magical senses. The few bits of Lewis Carrol that she
could remember was barely helping.
"Hmph!" Alice folded her arms and looked all haughty.
Any reply Willow might have made was put on hold by a
brilliant green flash. Suddenly, Willow was looking at
two Alices. Or was that two Buffies? The newcomer was
dressed head to toe in white skin-tight leather and
carrying the Scythe.
The newcomer took one look at Alice and groaned. "Aw, not
again!"
"Buffy?" Willow said.
"Willow?" the newcomer replied, her head turning to
Willow. That was all the confirmation Willow needed.
"You're alive!" they exclaimed at the same time and fell
into each others' arms.
"What's with the hair and hospital gown?" Buffy asked
after a moment.
"Oh, I got these after blowing up Sunnydale," Willow told
her friend.
"After you what?" Buffy replied, baffled. "Sunnydale was
still there last I looked."
"Making sense indeed," Alice sniffed. "I'm better off on
my own." Unnoticed by the reunited friends, she wandered
off on her own.
***
"I'm not sure if that helps," Cordelia said.
"I know what I'm doing," Dawn reassured her. "Trust me on
this."
"Like I got a choice?"
***
"So... what do we know about our guest?" General Jack
O'Neil, CO of Stargate Command, asked. He was seated at
the head of table in the SGC's briefing room. Seated
around the table was SG-1, or SG-1b as he liked to think
of it since Carter had taken it over. On the briefing
room table was a surprisingly huge array of weapons and
gadgetry that their "guest" had hidden on his person.
"Sir, I think Lieutenant Harris should answer that,"
Carter replied. "Since our guest is his duplicate after
all, I had him interview our guest."
"Harris?" O'Neil prompted.
"Well, sir, he's a handsome guy who has some funny ideas
about which service is better," Harris groused. "He
claimed that I should have gone with Marines or Army
instead of the - and I quote - 'namby pamby' Air Force.
Considering he never joined up himse... OW!"
That last came from Lieutenant Emily Francisco kicking
Harris under the table. O'Neil decided to ignore it.
Harris was too much like himself as it was. "Get to the
point, Harris," O'Neil prodded.
"Yes, sir," Harris winced. His Tectonese squad member
must have kicked him pretty hard. "As near as we can
tell, he's from a parallel reality."
"Oh, one of those," O'Neil groaned. "Lemme guess... his
world's been over run by the Goa'uld and he's here to
warn us of impending doom. Am I right?"
"Actually, no sir," Harris replied. "Our guest has never
heard of the Goa'uld, his world is just fine, and he has
no idea how he wound up here."
"Well, that's a change," O'Neil said relieved.
"Although he did mention that in his world," Harris
continued, "my... his hometown of Sunnydale had fallen
into the world's biggest pothole. I'm glad that hasn't
happened here."
O'Neil's face suddenly froze as he remembered a bit of
news he saw while SG-1 had been offworld. Until now, he
hadn't made the connection. And SG-1 hadn't had a chance
yet to catch up on the news...
"Sir? Is something wrong?" Carter asked, concerned.
***
"Hey, I found Xander," Cordelia announced.
"That's great," Dawn replied absently, busy with another
task. "Hold on a sec."
"What are you doing?"
"Recruiting."
"Recuiting who? There are only supposed to be three of
them," Cordelia looked at what Dawn was doing. "Him? Why
him?"
"What, it's not obvious?"
***
"You're not my Buffy."
"And you're not my Willow."
"Wow, this is depressing," Willow sighed. It took some
note comparing, but they figured out pretty quickly that
they weren't quite from the same universe. That meant all
their friends were still dead including their versions of
each other.
"Tell me about it," Buffy agreed.
"Okay," Willow said. "What appears to have happened is
that our timelines diverged after I came back from the
Dark Side. It's not like we haven't met people from
divergent timelines before. There was the vamp me."
"Is that possible?" Buffy mused. "I always thought that
time was linear. Linear like a ball of yarn maybe, but
still linear. Things like your vampire double I just
chalked up Wish-induced detours. Heck, I just escaped
from a twenty thousand year long time loop."
"Twenty thousand years?" Willow echoed in confusion.
"Well, it's kind of hard to put an exact date on things,"
Buffy began. Seeing that Willow's confusion was not
alleviated, Buffy sighed. "I suppose I should start at
the..."
Buffy was interupted by wooping noise. As they watched,
a phone booth with blacked out windows appeared in front
of them. Smoke was emanating from various nooks and
crannies.
"Funny, I don't recall Lewis Carrol ever mentioning any
cheshire phone booths," Willow commented.
The door of the phone booth opened and a coughing figure
stumbled out. "Oh dear, oh dear," the man said, regarding
the smoking phone booth. He was immediately familiar.
"This will not do. Won't do at all." He took notice of
the two girls staring at him, "I say, young ladies,
perhaps you could help me. I am..."
"GILES?" Buffy and Willow chorused.
***
"You've got to be kidding," Cordelia said doubtfully.
"That's not even really Giles. ANY version of Giles."
"Hey, if it walks like Giles and talks like Giles and
acts like Giles..." Dawn shrugged. "Now, where's Xander?"
***
"I thought you might like to know that I made a few phone
calls," Harris told his double. "Willow and the others
are just fine, even if Sunnydale has still turned into a
giant pothole."
"I'm glad for you," Xander replied. He flicked a piece of
his lunch at Harris. It hit one of the lasers criss-
crossing his cell bars and was promptly annihilated. "Can
I get out now?"
"The General says I can let you out," Harris replied as
he shut off the lasers. "You'll still be restricted to a
couple levels here, though."
"Fine. Can I get my stuff back?"
"You mean your portable armory?" Harris snorted as he
opened the cell door. "Don't push your luck. How'd you
get all that stuff under your coat anyway?"
"Call it a trade secret," Xander the immortal told his
mortal alternate as the former stepped out of the cell.
"By the way, who's your girlfriend?"
"Lieutenant Francisco is my teammate, not my girlfriend,"
Harris replied irratibly. "Why does everybody assume
that?"
"Because she's pretty, female, and not human?" Xander
suggested. "Not to mention the same rank you are."
"Harris, he has a point," Francisco said, speaking for
the first time. "You do seem to attract those types."
"Name one, Francisco," Harris challenged.
"Well, there was that one time with Osiris..."
"But not in front of the guy who doesn't have clearance,"
Harris added quickly, nodding to Xander.
"So... are you available?" Xander asked Francisco.
"Pardon?" Francisco asked in confusion.
"For a date I mean," Xander explained. "When this all
settles down, maybe we could go for a coffee together or
something."
"Oh, now wait a..." Harris began to interupt. Francisco
elbowed him. "Oof!"
"I might be available," Francisco said slowly. "But how
do I know you won't disappear into another dimension
again? You don't even know how you got here,"
"Hey, for all I know, I could be whisked home right now,"
Xander replied.
There was a lull in the conversation as if all three were
waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. After some
time, Harris finally broke the silence.
"Man, that usually works."
***
"Hey, you're not going to 'port Xander to the others?"
Cordelia asked in confusion.
"Nope." Dawn replied.
"Why not?"
"Just watch."
***
"So, if you're not Rupert Giles, who are you?" Buffy
asked slowly.
"I am a Time Lord called the Watcher," the Giles double
said.
"The Watcher," Buffy repeated. "Of course."
"You're a Time Lord?" Willow asked. "Like the Doctor?"
"Doctor who?" Buffy asked in confusion.
"Exactly," Willow said absently.
"Ah yes, the Doctor," the Watcher said bemused. "I take
it you've met my errant nephew?"
"Yes, he visited Sunnydale once," Willow told him.
"Hey, I never met any doctor!" Buffy said indignantly.
"Oh, I guess that's another divergence between your
timeline and mine," Willow soothed Buffy.
"I take it you young ladies are from parallel timelines?"
the Watcher inquired.
"Yeah, but we don't know how we got here," Willow told
the Time Lord. "Hey, since you're here, could you give
us a lift home in your TARDIS?" She patted the phone
booth's side.
"What's a Tardy? Turdee?" Buffy asked, still confused.
"Absolutely not!" the Watcher said indignantly, ignoring
Buffy.
"Why not?" Willow asked. "The Doctor takes passengers."
"Unlike the Doctor," the Watcher said slowly, as if to a
little child, "I do not take passengers. I do not
interfere. I watch, which is how I got my name."
"Oh..." Willow said, downcast.
"Besides," the Watcher continued. "My TARDIS was damaged
by a chance encounter with a filament of anti-dimensional
energy. It's not going anywhere."
***
"Um, oops?" Dawn repeated.
