Lie To Me

Xander rolled with the fledgling's lunge, tossing the vampire away as he spun back up to his feet with something that looked like a break-dancing move. The vampire picked himself up from a ways away and snarled as his allies spread out to surround the overdressed Fae.

It was sunday night - well, monday morning actually - and Xander and Willow had volunteered to patrol so Buffy wouldn't have to risk her mom's wrath by sneaking out.

Due to boredom, Buffy had been trying to help Willow sort through the workings of the Eliezera, but she just didn't have the technical mindset for it. After all, the systems they were delving into were never meant to be user-friendly to anyone but a Giaa. Even Willow would have had no hope if not for the simple fact that simplicity was efficient, and the Giaa's subsystems were as elegant as possible.

Xander had been spending his nights at Willow's place, now that neither of them cared about the so-called inappropriateness. Xander was embracing the idea that sex was just something you did with your friends, like watching movies or hanging at the Bronze, and Willow was eagerly taking advantage of that every chance she got. She'd been telling Buffy about it in excruciating detail, too, with a heavy subtext of, "wish you were there with us."

Willow's Dreamlink-to-internet project had hit a block. There was just no way for her to jury-rig a neutrino detector from standard materials, so she was holding off on that until she could synthesize one on the Eliezera.

She'd stuck with her new Naughty Schoolgirl look for being seen in public, and he'd seen her giving other boys and girls considering, lusty gazes. Xander might have worried about how much Willow had changed if he didn't know her so well, but he recognized the vibrant girl who had so rarely shone through her insecurities in the past. Also, he had seen the results of her slashfic phase, much to his horror at the time. She'd always had a rich kinky center inside her soft fluffy crust. And suddenly he was craving Twinkies.

Xander brush-blocked a wild swing from the fledgling he was fighting, twirled around and kicked the vampire in the direction he was already stumbling. That vampire fell into the two others who were busy trying to feed on Willow, knocking them down and pinning Willow under a three-vampire pileup. Xander pulled a handful of sawdust out of his pocket and flung it towards the vampires.

"Willow, now!" Xander called.

There was an electric spark in the air, and a big fiery explosion. The vampires were consumed instantly and Xander was knocked off his feet as a bright plume roiled upwards.

Willow sat up, vampire ash billowing off her skin as her Utility Cloud regrew, her body extruding more of the complex molecules from her pores to replace those blown away by the explosion. Her outfit had been reduced to blackened tatters. Willow gave Xander a sheepish smile.

"Okay, so maybe we didn't need to look up what kind of wood would make the biggest boom," Willow said.

Xander did that flip off his shoulders onto his feet thing. "It worked, though! Extra crispy vampires."

Willow looked around nervously. "Someone probably saw that, or got woken up by the noise."

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Xander agreed as Willow flowed to her feet and they took off at a sprint.

A pair of undercover NID agents were driving a slow circuit of the town, when their overwatch radioed them to report an explosion in a cemetery in their sector. They made a turn and the driver pulled to a stop when he spotted movement.

A gleam of pale flesh resolved into a nearly-naked red-haired woman vaulting the cemetery wall in a smooth fluid motion, slapping her hands down on the top of the wall and then tucking into a roll when she hit the ground. A guy in cargo pants and a colorful shirt followed her with an almost identical move.

The driver's partner snapped a few quick pictures with his nightvision camera. They compared the snapshots to the images of the aliens.

"We have two confirmed sightings," the agent reported.

The sighting was passed up the chain of command, while the agents attempted to tail the two aliens. They lost the pair in a nearby residential neighborhood, but the implication was clear. New identities hadn't popped up matching any of the three aliens, but no one had yet thought to check existing records for a facial match. With the NID's access to private data, the aliens' human aliases were soon identified.

Agents were redeployed according to the new information, and plans were discussed.

The teacher was busy trying not to sound exasperated as Cordelia shared her opinion, but Buffy wasn't really paying much attention. Having the Dreamlink was so much better than passing notes.

So the sawdust plan worked but it was way too conspicuous to use all the time,Willow sent. Not to mention hard on whatever you're wearing. Maybe whoever's playing bait should go in naked to start with?

As long as it's not me, Buffy replied. Just because I feel the need to go clothing-optional when I'm alone at home, now, doesn't mean I wanna prance around graveyards in the buff. No buff-y Buffy.

Willow glanced over at her, amused. Well anyway, after that we ran to my house and decided to have fun cleaning up in the shower together, which wasn't really necessary, obviously, but we hadn't had sex in a shower before and it seemed like a good opportunity. Xander feels so good when he's all wet and soapy, not that he doesn't feel good all the time. There's so much to feel for just one pair of hands, you know.

Buffy resisted the urge to hit her head on her desk as a shiver of desire crawled down her spine. Willow, I know Lyn would think I'm being random and ridiculous, but until a few days ago Angel was the only person I was even thinking about doing something with. I'm not over him, Wills. He's gone, and I can't just transfer my feelings over to Xander.

Well of course you shouldn't do that, Willow sent. Xander wouldn't like that any better than you would. We just want to be your friends, like always. Your Angel-shaped feelings should be for Angel, 'cause you've already got Xander-shaped feelings and Willow-shaped feelings for us. And don't even try to tell me those feelings don't have any sexy-wants of their own, missy.

Buffy plopped her chin into her hands with a pout. You really think we can live like real Fae?

Well, not totally, Willow replied. Not without a Giaa. But among the three of us? What's a little sex between friends? Or, you know, a lot. Willow gave her a sultry smile. I'd be okay with a lot.

Buffy snorted as the bell rang. Everybody gathered up their things and Willow followed Buffy out into the hall.

Strangely enough, Buffy was almost reluctant to resist Willow's advances. Lyn had actually been closer to Eelesia than to Zach, but Lyn's feelings for Eelesia were more like what Buffy thought she might've been starting to feel for Angel. Ironically, that made it easier to separate Lyn's memories and feel secure in her own feelings for Willow.

"I don't know," Buffy sighed. "It's like, the way I feel about you is different than the way Lyn felt about Eelesia, so I know that it's not Lyn's influence making me want to go all girl-on-girl with you. But, the way I feel about Xander, I thought it meant things should be this way, but Lyn felt the same way about Zach, and she thought it meant things should be this other way."

Xander popped up between them. "Say what meant what things should be what way?"

"It's nothing," Buffy said automatically.

"Friend things, and the sexy way," Willow revealed. "Buffy's confused because Lyn was 'just friends' with Zach but they had sex anyway."

"Willow," Buffy complained. "Do you have to be in total share mode?"

"Hey, it's me," Xander said. "If there's somethin' Faeish draggin' on your brainspace, I wanna know about it, 'cause I'm your friend and I care about you, and the three of us are in this together."

"I know, Xander," Buffy said. "Do you think maybe I'm just making things difficult for myself, making myself miserable, because I don't want to feel good about this when I just lost Angel? You guys don't think that's what I'm doing, do you?"

Xander and Willow paused on the few steps leading to the lounge area. They looked at each other, then back at Buffy, and nodded in unison. Buffy's shoulders fell and she pouted.

Xander and Willow took a seat on one of the sofas.

"Hey, why don't you come over tonight, Buffy?" Willow suggested, cuddling into Xander's side. "We can have snuggles and ice cream, and, you know, wallow and stuff."

Buffy looked at Xander. "Haven't you been staying at Willow's while her parents are out of town?"

Xander held up his hands. "Hey I can swallow my pride and mourn Angel with you if that's what you need."

"Yeah, sure, thanks you guys," Buffy said.

Xander noticed a cute boy he didn't know spot Buffy and make a beeline for her. He stopped behind Buffy and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey Summers, how you been?" the boy asked.

Buffy spun around. "Ford?" Her face split into an astonished smile and she threw her arms around him. "Oh my god! What are you doing here?"

"Uh, matriculating?" Ford said, holding onto Buffy's hands.

"Huh?"

"I'm finishing up my senior year at Sunnydale High," Ford explained. "My dad got transferred."

"This is great!" Buffy enthused.

Ford leaned in close, his eyes doing that soulful smoldering thing he was so good at. "I'm glad you think so. I didn't think you'd remember me."

"Remember you," Buffy repeated flatly. "Duh! We only went to school together for seven years." She smiled coyly. "You were my giant fifth grade crush."

"I don't know, he doesn't look very giant to me," Xander joked. "I didn't see him step on even one village on his way over here."

Willow, Buffy, and Ford all stared at him.

"What?" Xander looked between the other three. "Nothing?"

"So, uh, who's your friend, Buffy?" Willow asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, guys," Buffy said. "This is Billy Fordham. Ford, this is Xander and Willow."

"Nice to meet you!" Willow said cheerfully. Xander waved.

Ford sat next to Buffy on the sofa across from Xander and Willow. It was strange. Xander still half expected that he'd start feeling jealous any second now, but he just wasn't. Buffy being so happy to see the other boy just made Xander want to know him too.

"Ford and I went to Hemery together in LA," Buffy told them, turning to Ford. "And now you're here, for real?"

"Dad got the transfer, and boom, he just dragged me outta Hemery and put me down here," Ford confirmed.

"This is great!" Buffy said again. "Well, I mean, it's hard, sudden move, all your friends, delicate time, very emotional." Buffy put her hand on Ford's thigh and grinned widely. "But it's great to see you."

"So, you two were sweeties in fifth grade?" Willow asked eagerly.

"Not even," Buffy laughed. "Ford wouldn't give me the time of day."

"Well, I was a manly sixth-grader," Ford teased. "I couldn't bother with someone that young."

"It was terrible. I moped over you for months," Buffy reminisced. "Sitting in my room, listening to that Divinyls song I Touch Myself."

Ford raised an eyebrow. Buffy blinked, realizing how that sounded, and felt her face heat.

"Oh, that's what that song's about," Willow blurted. She gave Buffy a naughty smirk.

"Of course I didn't know that then!" Buffy said quickly.

"Though unaware, you were born through, by the soundtrack of your life," Xander deadpanned.

Ford chuckled and Buffy rolled her eyes.

"So, Ford, are you busy tonight?" Buffy asked. "You should come to the Bronze with us. It's the local club."

"I'd love to," Ford said. "But if you guys already had plans... Would I be imposing?

Buffy looked to Xander and Willow. "You guys don't mind, right?"

"No no, you should catch up with your friend, and we wanna get to know him too," Willow assured her.

"To the Bronze it is," Xander agreed.

"Okay then," Ford said, giving Buffy a smile. "If you're sure."

The order had been given, and the teams of agents had chosen their ambush site, outside the local youth club, an establishment known only as The Bronze. SUVs were parked in strategic positions. Agents lurked on rooftops and in alleys.

"We have movement. Sector three."

"Looks like a civilian and an HST. They're in the designated engagement zone."

"Operational security is the priority. Wait until the civilian is no longer a concern, then put an incendiary round in the HST's chest."

"Yessir."

"Hold. Target B sighted in sector one. One unknown. Possible accomplice."

The blonde alien and an unidentified black-haired boy strolled away from the Bronze together, arm in arm. They spoke casually, not seeming to be in a hurry to get anywhere in particular. The HST slammed the civilian girl up against a wall, and the blonde alien froze, cocking her head. She seemed to give the unknown boy an instruction, and then dashed around the corner into sector three.

"Target B is engaging the HST. The civilian is fleeing the area."

"The civilian is not important. Move in now. Take the unknown first, then close in on the target. Capture teams, go."

Buffy was still wincing about how lame her excuse had been when she dusted the vampire. She hadn't even brought a purse. Buffy pocketed her stake, hearing footsteps behind her. She turned just in time to see Ford standing there, before there was an odd electric noise and a bolt of blue light streaked out of an alley and struck Ford in the back. Ford went rigid like he was being electrocuted, and began to fall.

"Ford!" Buffy dashed forward, narrowly avoiding another bolt of blue light that crackled through the air behind her.

Shiny black SUVs screeched to a halt out of nowhere, boxing Buffy and Ford into the alley. Buffy spotted figures in black on rooftops and behind the SUVs taking aim with something metal. She leaped and twisted, dodging three more blue light bolts. She snatched a piece of broken concrete off the ground and hurled it at the guy on the roof, braining him.

A trio of black-clad men bundled Ford into the back of one of the SUVs. Buffy took down another guy with a piece of brick and chased after the SUV with Ford in it as it peeled out.

Buffy cursed under her breath, dodging another bolt of crackling blue. Whoever these bastards were, they were getting away with Ford, and she had no idea what they wanted or where they might take him. Buffy made a snap decision, and deliberately let the next glowing bolt hit her. It barely felt like anything, but Buffy tensed up and fell to ground, mimicking what she'd seen happen to Ford.

Footsteps ran up to her and rough hands picked her up, tying her hands behind her back and her feet together with bands of heavy plastic. Buffy formed an optical sensor with her Utility Cloud, so she could watch without giving herself away. She was loaded into an SUV, which drove off in what seemed like the same direction the one with Ford had gone.

The back of the SUV was fitted with a sturdy-looking wire cage, separating her from the front seat and the tinted windows. The driver was focused on the road, but the second agent watched her seemingly-unconscious form warily, keeping his snake-shaped raygun trained on her.

Willow, Xander. We've got a situation, Buffy sent over the Dreamlink. Me and Ford just got snatched by the freakin' Men In Black. They had rayguns and everything. They got Ford first, so I faked getting shot and let them take me, too.

Willow stopped dancing and exchanged a wide-eyed look with Xander.

Oh no! Willow replied. How? Why? What should we do?

I don't know. They weren't much with the explainy. They just came out of nowhere and started shooting, Buffy sent.

We'll sneak back to the shuttle and follow you, Xander suggested.

Xander led Willow off the dance floor while her attention focused on the distant craft.

Um, uh oh, Willow sent. Guys, the shuttle's missing. Hang on...

Be careful guys, Buffy sent. I doubt they were only after me. Their rayguns won't do anything to us, but they don't know that yet, and we don't want to encourage them to get bigger guns.

What the heck? What's the shuttle doing in Nevada? Willow questioned. Oh crud, they've got it under some kind of high-energy shielding. I can only reach it through the Overlink, and the signal latency is too high for direct control, so I can't see what they're doing with it. Should I send it back on autonav?

Leave it be and call down a new one for us, Xander advised. If they're taking Buffy to the same place as the shuttle, it'll be good for some major backup once Buffy's close enough to control it, if she needs to blow some shit up. Do you think we should call the SGC about this?

Buffy's Men In Black might be with the SGC, Willow countered. And if they're not, then the SGC will want to know what we were on Earth for in the first place, 'cause they think we're extradimensional aliens, remember?

Yeah, but they still might know something about these guys. Can you hack the SGC to find out what we're up against? Buffy sent.

Well, yeah, if my converter was working and I had a few days to search through their files for relevant stuff, Willow replied. The new shuttle is on its way, now. I sent it right to the roof of the Bronze.

Are the guys who took you saying anything? Xander asked, leading Willow up into the loft area and over to the roof access.

Not a thing, Buffy replied. No way these guys are on the up and up. I'm gonna play damsel for now, but I swear if they hurt Ford I'm gonna go total slayer mode on them.

Willow turned to Xander. "The shuttle'll be here in about twenty minutes."

"That long?" Xander worried.

"Well, yeah, if we want it to still have fuel when it gets here," Willow said. "I think we should probably stay inside until it gets here."

Xander looked down over the milling and dancing teenagers. "As long as they don't get impatient and storm the place. But I bet they figure they have us trapped in here."

"I bet somebody saw us land," Willow pondered. "They got the shuttle first, and then tracked us down after."

"They have to be with the SGC," Xander said. "How else would they know who we are? Especially Buffy. She was already home when we actually landed."

Willow scowled. "And they seemed so nice, too."

"You can track where Buffy is, right?" Xander checked.

Willow closed her eyes and pulled up the relevant subsystem in the Eliezera. She cross-referenced with current road-maps and studied the results. Willow nodded at Xander.

"She's on the interstate, heading southeast," Willow reported.

"Alright," Xander said. "So do we confront the SGC after all? Like, hey, you attacked us, cut it out or we'll wreck your crap?"

"Um, yeah, okay, but after we see if the Men In Black do the talking thing at Buffy," Willow said. "We don't know what we're gonna have to do, yet. So we don't know what to do the threatening thing about, yet."

"Right," Xander said, pulling Willow into his arms.

The shuttle drifted to a stop, its downwash of ionized air whistling softly over the roof of the Bronze. A trapdoor flipped open, and Willow dashed up with Xander on her heels. Bolts of blue light shot at them from several directions, and Willow wasn't sure if any of them hit.

In moments, Willow and Xander were inside the bubble, and Willow was flying it east, keeping low to the ground and subsonic as she held herself centered in the shuttle with her skeletal magnetics.

"Wills?"

"Yeah Xander?"

"Are we doing this as scoobies or as Fae?" he asked.

"Fae," Willow said resolutely. "I think we should stick to the story we told SG-1 until we know they know otherwise."

Willow quickly stripped out of her clothes, letting them fall to the bottom of the bubble, and Xander followed suit. It kind of felt like when they'd load up on weapons before a patrol, to Xander. Getting rid of his clothes actually made him feel less vulnerable. Xander Harris the highschool boy was safe, because he was facing this as Xander Reon the immortal interstellar traveler.

Xander floated up next to Willow and took her hand, as the green-dotted brown moonlit landscape raced by beneath them.

Buffy, we're airborne and inbound, Willow sent. Anything new on your end?

I pretended I was waking up to see if they'd say anything, but they just shot me again, Buffy replied. Besides that, no.

"Sir, we're getting a signal from the Fae," Sergeant Walters reported as SG-1 filed into the control room.

"Well put it up on the thing," Colonel Jack O'Neill ordered.

Walters hit some buttons, and a screen flashed, resolving into a remarkably clear image of Willow Rin's face and exposed chest, with a dark desert landscape streaming away behind her. Somebody dropped a clipboard in surprise, and Jack nearly rolled his eyes. Willow's glossy red hair flowed dramatically and she had a terribly severe expression on her face.

Jack held in a groan, just knowing that this was going to be another night he didn't get to sleep. Willow looked pissed off, and she wasn't bothering to hide the distinctly earthly landscape she was traveling over.

"SGC, this is Willow Rin of the Fae," she said.

"Hey there, Willow," Jack said glibly. "I don't suppose you're callin' to tell us what you're doin' in our airspace?"

"In a manner, Colonel O'Neill. Someone with information they could only have obtained from you has attacked us," Willow stated. "We will give you one chance to have our people released, unharmed. If you do so immediately, we will allow you to keep the shuttle you stole, for study, which we feel is more than reasonable. If you do not, we will take back what is ours by force."

"Whoa whoa hold on there," Jack cut in. "This is all news to me. Last we knew you fellas were sittin' pretty up on your ship. But if you tell me what's going on, maybe we can help. Who was taken, and how?"

Willow ignored the question. "I would be happy to learn you and your team had no hand in this, Colonel O'Neill, but if that is the case I suggest you pass our warning on, and tell me everything you know about the facility located at these coordinates." A series of numbers appeared on the screen.

"Carter," Jack prompted.

Samantha Carter sat down at a terminal and did some stuff. Elizabeth Weir showed up, then. She did a double-take at the bare-breasted young woman on the screens. Weir was frozen in pure incredulity for a second or so until she remembered the report on the Fae.

"Sir, there's nothing at those coordinates but desert, according to our data," Carter reported. "If there's a facility there, it's not ours, or any of our allies'."

"Darn," Willow muttered.

"Who owns the land?" Weir inquired.

"It's not privately held. It's on the outskirts of a state park," Carter said.

"Too bad," Willow said. "I suggest you spread the word. If our people are not handed to us when we ask, we will destroy anything between us and them."

The screen went dead.

Buffy, came a message from Willow. We called the SGC and they say they don't know anything about these guys. I think they were telling the truth, too.

Buffy played possum as they carried her out of the SUV. They were in the middle of the desert, in front of a squat concrete shed tucked into a ravine under a large camouflage tent. She held in a sigh of relief when she saw them carrying an unconscious Ford out of the SUV ahead of her.

Inside, they carried her into a large elevator, and came out in a bland white concrete hallway. Buffy was deposited alongside Ford in a featureless concrete room with a steel door and florescent lights inset where the walls met the ceiling.

Buffy checked her Dreamlink, and sure enough the first shuttle was in range. She took control, but only to look around. The shuttle was sitting inside a large laboratory, inside some kind of force-field looking thingy. Men and woman in stereotypical sciency outfits were fiddling with various instruments that Buffy couldn't identify.

One woman sitting at a computer terminal called over her shoulder, "I'm reading a spike in neutrino emissions. Still no EM but what it's reflecting from the environment."

Several of the scientists argued over some technical stuff that Buffy didn't bother to listen too. She watched as they collectively shrugged and topic turned to material samples. Somebody complained about the tools they'd already ruined, and then someone else suggested they use something called a trinium saw.

Buffy shifted her attention and peeked at Ford, but he was still out.

Back at the shuttle, Buffy spotted a series of little obelisk things that the force-field seemed to feed into, or out of. She wondered if she ought to just blow up the lab, grab Ford, and fly out to meet Xander and Willow, but this wasn't really a slay-first-ask-questions-never situation. There was nothing that made Buffy think these people wouldn't just come after them again.

A pair of men approached the shuttle carrying something that looked like a cross between a jigsaw and a dentist drill. It had a small blade that hummed with a hypersonic whine. They brought it up to the hull of the shuttle and started cutting.

Buffy was immediately aware of the damage, but she wasn't too worried since she knew the shuttle's hull could easily regenerate. Then the sawblade penetrated all the way through...

CRAAKOOM!

...and Buffy's sight went dizzy as the highly pressurized radon gas exploded out, ripping a bloody hole through the bodies of the two men managing the saw, killing them instantly, and propelled the punctured shuttle into the force-field with a crash. The shuttle automatically expanded to full size and squeezed the inner and outer hulls into a seal around the rip.

The surviving scientists screamed and scrambled, choking on the heavy radon that filled the inside of the force-field. Fortunately for them, the shuttle had wedged itself into a corner near one of the field emitters, and its hull was in contact with the force-field itself. The shuttle drank in power from where it touched the force-field, quickly repairing itself and draining the emitters.

The force-field failed, and torrents of radon crashed outwards like a tidal wave. Alarms blared, heavy doors slammed closed, and armed men scrambled.

All that, and Buffy hadn't had to lift a finger, so to speak. On the one hand, HA HA! But on the other, that trinium thing was worrisome, but Fae skin was considerably harder to cut than the shuttle hull, because the skin didn't have to be permeable to large objects, but even cutting the shuttle hull should have been impossible for an ordinary metal blade.

Buffy left the shuttle and opened her eyes, sitting up and pretending to look around. She tugged at her wrist ties and felt them give just enough to know she'd be able to break them if she wanted. Buffy scooched over to Ford and gave him a nudge.

Unknown to Buffy, the moment she touched him, her skin absorbed the energy field produced by the first shot of the zat'nik'tel, dispelling the stun effect.

Ford groaned, waking up and slowly focusing on Buffy. Buffy helped him sit up.

"Ergh. I don't think those were vampires," Ford slurred.

Buffy froze. "What?"

Ford focused on her face and smiled. "I know you're the Slayer. I was waiting for the right time to tell you, I saw what really happened that night at Hemery. I know all about it."

"Oh."

"But, unless I missed a memo, vampires don't have rayguns," Ford went on. "What happened? Where are we?"

"Somewhere in Nevada, best I can tell," Buffy informed him. "I don't know who those guys were or what they were shooting us with, though."

Ford leaned his shoulder up against the wall. "They looked kinda... spook-like."

"I noticed." Buffy agreed. "I think they're like the Men In Black or something, only evil and without the Will Smith goodness. They probably want to dissect us, 'cause they're sure not in talky mode."

Ford closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. "Fuck."

Buffy tried to think of how to tell him they'd be alright without giving anything away to whoever might be listening, when Ford started laughing. It was a long, deep, body-shaking laugh, full of irony and regret.

"Ford?" Buffy tried, concerned.

Ford let his head roll to the side to look at her. "Ah, I'm sorry, it's just too fucking funny."

"Huh?"

"I would've been dead soon anyway," Ford sighed. "I have cancer, Buffy. Doctors told me I had six months, but the thing that dies at the end of that won't even be me anymore. Just a bald, smelly, tumorous vegetable. Frankly, I'd rather get cut up in some lab, than that."

"Ford..." Buffy started uncertainly, eye's wide.

"I missed you, Summers. Really did," Ford said, smiling at her. "But that's not why I came to Sunnydale, if you want the truth."

"What are..."

"I had this whole fiendish plot, you know," Ford told her conspiratorially. "There's this group, called the Sunset Club. They're idiots. Think vampires are these misunderstood romantic figures. I was gonna use them to..."

Buffy, we're at the gates, or, um shed-bunker-thing, Xander sent. Willow's shouting at them with a simulated loudspeaker, but all they're doing is shooting at us.

Ford swallowed, his expression somber. "I've got maybe two months before the nest of tumors in my head starts liquefying my brain. So little time. I wanted... I thought..." Ford shook his head. "I can't go out like that, Buffy. I was going to pull a con on you, sell a deal to get myself turned. Better a vampire, than a slow agony of dying piece by piece. Even if it didn't work, being one more villain defeated by Buffy the Vampire Slayer would at least be... Anything would be better than..."

Buffy was frozen in horror as Ford trailed off. He'd just confessed to serious badness, but he was Ford, her long-time friend, and he was facing an unbelievably horrible death. Buffy didn't know what to do.

Patterns of thought from Lyn's memories bubbled up. Ford's mind would be destroyed, a little at a time, before his body failed entirely. Even if his soul was going to carry his mind-state into a continued existence when it passed on - even if the soul-magic of this universe worked that way, and there was no evidence that it did - there would be nothing left of him to save.

"Ford, the thing that wakes up after you get turned, it's not you," Buffy found herself saying. "It's made of you, but its not you."

"It would be more me than what I'll become if I don't do something!" Ford insisted.

Buffy opened her mouth to argue, but her Lyn memories stopped her. Lyn had a far more concrete and specific understanding of consciousness and what made a person, a person, than Buffy did. And as much as the wrongness of it sickened her, Ford was right.

Oh gods did she not want to think about it, but she couldn't help herself. A being was wholly and exactly the sum of their parts. When a human became a vampire, some important parts went missing, and other new parts were added in, but most of the parts were the same. In the whole they became something that couldn't co-exist with unaltered humans, but they were no less living minds and deserving of existence - and that thought was so antithetical to her instincts and world-view that it felt like her brain skipped gears and stalled.

"It would be a monster!" Buffy rallied, tears in her eyes. "You don't want that."

There was a way Ford could live, Buffy knew. There was a brief time, Lyn remembered, where every Fae that lived had once been human. Even the worst cancer wouldn't matter at all. There was nothing of the frail human biology left in the body of a Fae. A Fae's body was a flawlessly engineered system, built from the molecular level up. Not even DNA remained. Ford could live on, immortal, just as he hoped, without losing anything at all.

"I don't want to be a broken shell either!" Ford shouted.

"Damn it, Ford! The vampires can't save you!" Buffy's stare hardened. "But I can."

Large-caliber armor-piercing bullets puckered the hull of the shuttle, falling to the dirt like metal rain. Willow guided the shuttle in a low circle around the camo tent and concrete shed. She'd been demanding the two prisoners be released for a while now, to no avail.

"I don't think they're listening, Wills," Xander noted.

Three soldiers emerged with rocket launchers, and took aim. Three streaks of fire struck the shuttle and exploded, illuminating Xander and Willow in the orange light of the flames. A small smile found its way onto Willow's face.

"Bored now."

A mere ten-thousand or so radon atoms were accelerated by the shuttle's drive, to such speed that the shuttle swayed back from the recoil. The tiny stream of radon tore a fiery tunnel through the air itself, crushing the nitrogen and oxygen in its path with enough force to cause a fusion effect.

Thirty nanoseconds later, the front end of a Humvee blew apart, flipping it up onto its back. The soldier on the gun turret survived, but he wouldn't be getting up on his own. A shockwave of plasma from the thermonuclear backblast blew all the surrounding soldiers off their feet, those nearest suffering second-degree burns.

Willow carefully aimed a second shot at the gun truck at the other end of the firing line, striking just under the front axle, and blowing that vehicle apart too. Soldiers scrambled to retreat back into the bunker, so Willow fired at the center of the concrete roof. It blew apart, raining debris on the soldiers who were busy diving for cover.

Taking that as his cue, Xander dropped through the bottom of the shuttle. One guy with a P-90 managed to get his gun up from where he was sprawled on the ground and get a few shots off. Xander flinched in pain, landing hard with one knee on the guy's ribs. Bone cracked.

Xander stood up, his jaw working soundlessly. "You shot me in the balls! Dude! Ow!"

Moving on, Xander dashed in among the soldiers that were getting to their feet, snatched one guy's gun away, and smashed another guy in the head with it. Bullets bounced off his back, staggering him, so he turned it into a roll and came up with electricity arcing through his Utility Cloud. Two guys dropped from minor electrocution, and Xander staggered again as bullets slammed into his side.

Willow fired another focused pulse at the ground near the rallying squad, spraying them with molten dirt and sending them sprawling. Xander rode the blastwave and tucked into another roll, coming to his feet by the ruin of the concrete shed where reinforcements were pouring out.

The newcomers opened fire, and Xander stumbled back under the sheer force of that many bullet impacts. Xander dropped to all fours and clawed his way forward, slamming into a pair of legs. Spreading his Utility Cloud, electric arcs crackled through the air, and soldiers fell twitching.

Up in the shuttle, Willow adjusted the environmental controls and then dropped out to the ground herself. She made the shuttle settle on the ground and then roll itself back and forth over the battlefield, collecting the fallen soldiers.

"Any more?" Willow asked.

"I don't see any coming out," Xander said. He shook his head at the pile of camo-clad bodies in the shuttle. "I really shouldn't find that funny."

Willow had the shuttle deposit the soldiers in a groaning pile some ways away and then come pick her and Xander back up. As they lifted into the air, Willow started bombarding the revealed entrance to the underground facility, until all that remained was a large, slightly radioactive crater with severed hallways poking out of the walls.

Buffy, the way out is open, Willow sent.

Thanks Wills. I've got Ford. I'm on my way, Buffy replied.

The faint sounds of explosions rumbled from above as Buffy ripped her wrists and legs free. Pushing down on the floor with her Utility Cloud, Buffy floated up into the air as her clothes shredded into scrap. No more pretending.

Buffy yanked on the steel door with her skeletal magnetics, and her feet slammed into the concrete on either side hard enough to produce a spiderweb of cracks. There was nothing to grab onto, but that didn't matter when her entire skeleton was a slayer-powerful and precisely variable electromagnet. She slapped her hands down flat against the metal, and pulled.

Ford was frozen with his mouth hanging open, as he watched the steel buckle, seeming to stick to Buffy's hands. Her naked body strained, pristine and beautiful.

The door tore from its moorings, falling on top of Buffy as she crashed to the floor. She kicked it off and rolled backwards to her feet, turning to Ford. He was still gaping. Buffy scooped him up into her arms and strode out of the cell.

"Okay, I knew you were the Slayer," Ford mumbled faintly. "I didn't know you could do that."

Blue bolts of light suddenly filled the hallway as men with rayguns rounded corners and fired. Buffy ignored the bolts. Ford flinched every time they were hit, but as long as he was touching Buffy the energy field was absorbed by her skin before it could do any harm.

Some of the guys with rayguns cut and ran, while others pulled out pistols. Buffy didn't spare the time to reach out with her Utility Cloud, and magnetically yanked the guns out of their hands directly. She kicked the flying guns aside before they could break something of Ford's, and those guys turned and ran too.

Willow leaned back into Xander's arms as they stood beside the shuttle where it rested on the scorched dirt. She was a little worried about how much she had enjoyed raining destruction on those guys. She hoped none of them died.

Suddenly, a little ways around the edge of the crater, the air lit up with a flare of brilliant white. Then the light was gone and a large group of armed people with SGC patches on their shoulders were standing in its place.

"Of course! Since this universe has an exploitable subspace, you could supernavigate the quantum uncertainty as expressed in only the limited dimensions of normal space from an extraspacial vantage point..." Willow trailed off, her eyes finding Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter among the new arrivals. "You have direct matter manipulation and you were asking about weapons?" Willow shrieked.

"Well hello to you too," Colonel O'Neill greeted, before turning and barking orders, sending teams down to secure the facility and the wounded.

Several of the marines and SG teams were staring at Xander and Willow, at least one muttering about, "Said 'they might be naked', shit, they weren't kidding."

Willow was still stuck on them having beaming technology. "You... that... you can... weapons are obsolete! Why the frilly heck were you asking about weapons?"

"Sir?" Colonel Carter checked.

"Go ahead, Carter."

Major Carter informed Willow that the technology wasn't theirs. It was on lone from an alien race called the Asgard, and the Asgard had built limits into the system. They couldn't beam only part of an object. They couldn't activate the beam unless a suitable destination was already targeted. It wouldn't let them make copies of things, or generally do anything except move things from one place to another.

"Oh, that makes more sense, then," Willow said. "But still, you'd think - Buffy!"

Buffy strolled out of the facility into the crater, carrying Ford bridal-style, and gave a team of marines a dazzling smile as she dashed up the edge of the crater with three quick leaps. She landed lightly next to the shuttle and stuck Ford inside. Willow wondered what had happened to Buffy's clothes - Ford still had his - but she wanted to encourage no-clothes Buffy, and drawing attention to it probably wouldn't do that, so she kept the knowing smirk of smugness off her face.

Instead, she just wrapped her arms around Buffy and gave her a short but heartfelt kiss. Buffy was flustered, but she tried to play it off like she wasn't, which Willow took as a good sign.

"Wills, I need you to take Ford up to the Eliezera," Buffy told her quietly. "Right now. He told me some things..."

Meanwhile, Daniel Jackson was trying to smooth things over with Xander.

"I can promise you that this wasn't a sanctioned operation, and we would all like to offer you and your people an apology, and our hope that this incident won't sour any future relations," Daniel stated.

"I think we're not quite ready to trust you completely, but I'm willing to accept that you guys are not of the evil," Xander offered.

Xander, we need to take Ford to the Eliezera. Let's go before the SGC people decide to try to keep us here, Willow sent.

"Thank you for giving us the benefit of the doubt," Daniel said. "Um, our investigators would like to take a statement. Anything you can tell us about how they managed to take Ms. Reaval and, uh..."

"Sorry," Xander interrupted, "but we've got to do a thing. We call ya, okay?"

"Wait - "

Xander used his skeletal magnetics to yank himself through the air towards the shuttle. He slipped through the hull, joining Buffy and Willow inside.

There was a gust of wind from the silent downwash as the shuttle lifted from the ground, Willow floating in the center of the bubble. Ford sat at the bottom with Buffy while Xander settled himself halfway up the curve of the sphere, in front of Willow.

Buffy smiled softly as Ford stared at the slowly shrinking Earth through the hull of the shuttle. She slid closer and put her hand on his.

"Not what you were expecting?" Buffy asked wryly.

Ford shook his head. "I thought I knew what was going on, with you being the Slayer. I never imagined anything like this. I'm so sorry Buffy. I was such a fool to think I could... play you."

"Yes. Yes you were." Buffy held serious-face for a few more seconds and then grinned at him.

"So, is there some reason you're all naked?" Ford asked, finally looking away from the shrinking Earth. "I mean, don't get me wrong, your transformation sequence thing was very badass, I'm just wondering what happened to the ending part where your magical girl uniform appears." Ford gazed up teasingly at her through his eyelashes.

Willow burst into giggles, turning a slow somersault as she clutched her knees to her chest and shook with laughter. Xander snorted and ducked his head to hide his grin.

Buffy pouted. "Come on, what's so funny? Make with the 'splainy."

"You never watched anime, Buffy?" Willow asked, getting herself under control.

"Um, no?"

Ford shook his head. "Never mind, then. But seriously, why all the nudity?"

"Why not?" Buffy chirped. "We've become something more than human, Ford. We've become Fae. We've outgrown the need."

Willow shot Buffy a sneaky proud look.

"That's the point of all this," Buffy said. "We're going to turn you into a Fae. You'll live forever, you'll be nearly impossible to harm, and you won't be trading your moral instincts for demonic urges."

"You can really do that?" Ford asked.

"Can and will," Buffy confirmed.

The shuttle passed through the Eliezera's hull, transitioning from dark starry space to a beautiful meadow with rolling hills and palm trees, lit by the glow of a vast greenish-blue gas planet with gleaming lavender rings that filled more than half the sky.

"Whoa, that's new," Xander commented.

"I found some of the landscaping presets, remember?" Willow said. "I did some remodeling yesterday. Like it?"

"It's beautiful, Wills," Buffy told her.

"What planet is that?" Ford wondered.

"Oh, it's not a real planet, just an image I made up," Willow confessed.

The shuttle deposited the foursome on the grass. Buffy, Xander and Willow stood, while Ford floated, holding on to Buffy's hand. Buffy felt kind of like she was towing a Ford-shaped balloon around.

"Hey, this isn't grass," Ford said.

The grass under their feet was green, but that's where its resemblance to grass on earth stopped. Each 'blade' was a rounded blunt stalk about the size of a finger, and squishy like an earlobe. It was far more pleasant to the touch than natural grass.

"It's Fae grass," Xander deadpanned.

"The grass and flowers and trees and stuff are all engineered," Willow explained. "The Giaas never just copy what nature came up with, 'cause they have goals nature didn't."

They came to the top of a hill, where a fleshy translucent egg-shaped thing jutted up through the grass. It looked like something you'd come up with if you tried to make the Zerg aesthetic cozy and comforting. A thick muscular base, diverging into four thick bands of reddish flesh that somehow managed to look pretty instead of gross, all meeting at the top. The translucent membrane they cradled seemed to glow with a faint, warm, inner light.

"This is a birthing pod," Willow explained. "Or in your case, a rebirthing pod. It'll manage and monitor the process of your transition. It'll take between two and three weeks, but you'll be, ah, asleep the whole time."

Willow didn't want to go into details unless he asked. Once in the pod, his biorhythms and brain activity would be suspended, then engineered molecules would break down his body until there was nothing left but the brain and spinal cord. The brain would shrink as each neuron was carefully replaced with an optimized design while preserving the existing structure, chemical information, and connections, then expand once more to human size as control circuitry for the Utility Cloud, skeletal magnetics, Dreamlink, and morph settings was wired in, along with the vastly improved memory capacity, basic Fae language, and optimized motor skills. As this happened, the rest of the new Fae's body grew out from the nervous system and skeleton, and their morph settings were preset to match the extrapolated ideal of the macroscopic scan of the original human. That all sounded kinda scary if you didn't understand the science behind it.

Ford looked at the pod a bit nervously. "And when I wake up, I'll be..."

"Safe," Buffy supplied.

Ford nodded. "What do I have to do?"

"You might want to strip down, or at least empty your pockets, but you don't have to do anything but climb in," Willow said.

"Alright," Ford said, handing his wallet to Buffy and kicking off his shoes.

Willow triggered the pod to open, and it peeled itself apart like a blooming flower, the membrane dissolving as the fluid womb flattened and drained away.

"Willow, there's already someone in there," Xander said suddenly.

Willow flew forward. "What? How?!"

Willow had only made the pod grow itself less than an hour ago, and it had been empty then. And yet, a sleeping girl floated in a cradling nest of delicate tendrils, curled up in fetal position. She looked about thirteen by human standards, like a newborn Fae, and had short sandy-brown hair, with a skin tone and face shape reminiscent of Buffy's. Willow was ready to call shenanigans.

"Who's she?"