(Previously, on Stargate SG-1... you may want to refresh your memory of the episode, Unnatural Selection.)
New Order
One moment, the scoobies were puzzling over who or what might have manipulated events to set the Watcher's Council against the Devon Coven, or if that was even the aim at all. The next moment, white light streamed in through the windows and ragged holes Harriet and Kiritsugu's fight had ripped out of the house.
Men in black body armor suddenly surrounded Willow's house, and they barely waited for the light of their transport to fade before they aimed their rifles at those within.
Willow-kink didn't bother to dodge out of the way. It wasn't like bullets could hurt her. But it wasn't a bullet that hit her. With sharp hisses of air, the soldier's rifle fired a little blinking dart that latched onto her skin and stuck, and as soon as it did Willow-kink was enveloped in white light and beamed away.
Transponders.
"Willow! Beam everybody out, now!" Buffy ordered as she vaulted over Kiritsugu and Irisviel, her Utility Cloud swatting darts out of the air.
Forewarned, the other Willows closed ranks in front of Giles and Kendra, likewise using their Utility Clouds to block the darts before they could land. Willow-icos sent the mental command screaming up to the Eliezera.
Kiritsugu was off the couch and dodging with impossible speed before Buffy got her first syllable out. He snatched the dart rifle out of the nearest soldier's hands and swung it like a club. The weapon shattered as it smashed into the next soldier's tactical helmet, knocking him clear off his feet and into a third soldier.
A half-dozen darts hung in the air in front of Harriet, but another soldier coming from the other side of the house put a dart in her back. Blue fire incinerated a handful of darts, but Irisviel was low on power, and one made it through.
Giles and Kendra vanished in a flash of light as Willow-icos beamed them into the high school library. Irisviel and Harriet vanished in a flash of light as the transponders provided a lock for their assailants and beamed them into the metallic grey cell where Willow-kink was waiting.
Willow had a slightly hysterical moment, contemplating that this was not what the term Beam-O-War meant, at all, and she would have much preferred the traditional interpretation. She was frantically trying to get a transporter lock on Kiritsugu, but there was some kind of temporal distortion around him that prevented it, and while she was actively targeting the system, Willow-kink couldn't use it to escape with Irisviel and Harriet.
Fortunately, as Willow-icos regretfully engaged the transporter, Kiritsugu suddenly appeared at her side and latched onto her arm. The three Willows, Buffy, Xander, and Kiritsugu escaped in a flash of white.
Oz streaked towards Willow's house like a Vin-shaped bullet, only to watch three identical Willows along with Buffy, Xander, and some guy he didn't know, all vanish the same way the soldier guys arrived. Oz aborted, steelpushing hard and shooting away. She glanced back curiously, wondering what the story behind all that had been.
Willow-kink immediately took control of the Eliezera's transporter, seeing through the starship's senses that she was somewhere inside the Prometheus in high orbit. She used her Dreamlink to target the transporter, but it was already too late. A shell of n-dimensional spacial interference glimmered into being around the Prometheus, creating a region of space where the transporter couldn't reach.
"Dang it," Willow complained. "They raised shields. I can't beam us out."
"Beam us out?" Harriet repeated faintly. "Does that mean they just beamed us up?"
Irisviel was slumped against one wall of the brightly lit grey metal cell, and her eyes widened as she made a connection. "The Travelers."
Willow briefly contemplated just blasting the Prometheus with the Eliezera's stardrive, but she had no idea how strong the shields were, and she knew the Air Force ship was a lot more agile than her generation ship. If she guessed low, they'd just fly out of sight. If she guessed high, she'd kill everyone on the ship except her, most likely including her fellow prisoners.
The shuttles? With enough of them, she might be able to carefully hound thePrometheus until its shields failed, but she couldn't directly control more than one shuttle at a time, and even if she could they'd probably just jump into hyperspace.
Buffy held on to Kiritsugu so he wouldn't float away in the weightless environment. "Hey, wait. Wills! He's human!"
The Willows all got wide-eyed and Willow-icos said, "Oh no, you're right, Buffy! Um, mister, do you have any spells to shield yourself from radiation?"
Kiritsugu blinked. "No. Why?"
"Crud," Willow-icos answered. "We need to get you out of here in the next couple of minutes if you want to stay a healthy human. You're getting a serious dose of radiation from our ship's fusion core right now."
"I would normally recommend the other option," Willow-para added. "Take the upgrade and become Fae like us, but we just don't have time for that. I think we're gonna need your help, and besides they got your wife, too. She's alright by the way. I'm still in contact with my other self, and she's with me."
Kiritsugu frowned, processing that. "Where are they?"
Willow-rhom waved a hand, and the faintest of threads sprang out of the ground, forming a frame. The frame filled with a very high definition image of the Eliezera in space, then the image zoomed in on the boxy grey shape of the Prometheus.
Kiritsugu stared for a long moment. "Well fuck."
"I think they were trying to take all of us at once," Buffy considered. "They were clearly trying to take us by surprise, and they knew what they were doing. Even so, they only got one of us. They... oh crap!"
"What is it, Buffy?" Xander asked.
"They know about our Sunnydale lives. What if they find my mom?" Buffy exclaimed. "We've got to move her before they find her."
Buffy whirled, and between one step and the next, she beamed herself down to her house. Her departure seemed to shake Kiritsugu out of his stunned state, and he pulled his feet under him, using telekinesis to hold himself against the odd squishy not-grass.
"Iris and the Potter girl can both fly," Kiritsugu commented. "If we can draw that ship down into the atmosphere, they can rip it apart from the inside and escape."
"That shouldn't be too hard," Willow-icos mused. "As far as I've been able to find, they only have the one ship so far, so if we can figure out something to force them to bring in a ship, it'll have to be that ship."
Kiritsugu suddenly went still. "These are the people who operate a portal to other worlds out of Colorado, correct?"
The Willows nodded. "The Stargate."
"I know what to do," Kiritsugu said. "Can you send me to Westbury?"
"You mean to Harriet's coven?" Willow-para asked with a confused frown. "Yeah, why?"
"The simplest way to manipulate an enemy is to present them with a foe they expect, concealing the foe they don't," Kiritsugu said. "We will need the coven's power for an illusory conjuration of that magnitude."
"I'll go with you," Willow-para offered, stepping back and pulling clothes out of the ground. "I've seen enough of the Goa'uld to make sure the trick is convincing."
Willow-para quickly fastened the green pleated skirt around her hips, and pulled the black t-shirt over her head. Barefoot and without underwear, the token clothing was really only there to make her inconspicuous from a distance. Grabbing Kiritsugu's arm, she targeted the correct location and activated the transporter.
Private Dixon swore as yet another sawblade wore down to a nub. Judging by the smells coming off the motor, that was about burn out again too. Dixon glared at the creepy flesh-like demonic pod thing his squad had been ordered to recover after Finn's squad had discovered it by accident while tracking a group of foreign insurgents for the sake of inter-agency cooperation.
"Hurry it up, Dix," Private Stavros urged tensely as he arranged the heavy straps they'd run through the basement window to the hitch on their humvee.
Dixon changed the sawblade yet again. "I'm goin' as fast as I can. Damn thing makes kevlar look like cardboard, and it's freaking healing every time I have to stop and put a new blade on!"
The other members of their squad didn't comment, as they were busy weakening the wall they were planning on hauling the pod through. Dixon knelt back down and resumed trying to cut through the base of the pod thing, only for the air of the basement to be split by an electric whine.
Needless to say, the squad of young men were more than a little staggered by the naked blonde girl suddenly appearing in their midst.
Buffy took one look at the scene in front of her and flew into a rage.
All at once the army guys burst into motion. The guy trying to cut down her mom's pod swung at her with the saw, but she blocked it with her arm. The sawteeth caught on her skin and jammed, sparks erupting from the powertool as its motor failed.
An electric blast hit Buffy in the back, to absolutely no effect. Buffy punched the saw guy, her fist breaking through ribs and organs with an explosion of blood, and grabbed him by his spine. She hurled him with all her strength at the guy with the blaster, his scream cutting off abruptly as the impact threw both men into the wall hard enough to break a dozen bones.
Another two guys came at her with tactical batons. Buffy ducked the first swing, and caught the second, ripping the baton out of the army guy's hand and ramming it through the other guy's neck. A spinning back kick shattered the first guy's jaw and sent him crashing into the same wall that already had a pile of bodies under it.
That took care of everyone in the basement, but Buffy could hear movement outside. Her eyes followed the heavy straps that were running up and out the basement window, and she leaped.
In a slayer-worthy feat of precision, Buffy dived through the tiny window and rolled to her feet. An electrical blast hit her, once more doing nothing. There were only two guys left, and Buffy snapped out her slayer-enhanced Utility Cloud, guiding a massive electrical discharge right into the two soldiers, boiling their innards until they both exploded like a cat in a microwave oven.
Buffy flinched, her rage cooling as steaming entrails rained down on her lawn. Apparently her electrical capacity was slayer-enhanced too, because that really shouldn't have happened. Ick.
The soldiers' heads were intact, even so, so Buffy just shuddered at all the gore and shrugged it off. Behind her, flashes of white were taking the soldiers she'd killed in the basement.
Buffy slid back in through the window, shards of broken glass snagging on her bare butt and raining to the floor in her wake. She took a moment to sweep her Utility Cloud down her body and through her hair, cleaning off all the blood and guts.
Once she was clean, she checked on her mom. The minor damage to the birthing pod was already halfway healed. Buffy breathed a sigh of relief.
Racing up the stairs into the house proper, Buffy dashed up to Joyce's room and started throwing clothes into a suitcase.
They found my mom, Buffy sent. I don't know if they identified her, but after I pack for her, can you beam her pod and her car into that cave where Xander stashed Cordelia? I'd do it, but I have a hard enough time targeting the thing for just myself.
I'm on it, Willow-icos replied. Just tell me when.
Buffy zipped the suitcase closed and ran, leaping down the stairs in one jump and dashing into the garage. She yanked the passenger door open, tossed the suitcase onto the driver's seat, and climbed into the passenger seat herself.
Alright, let's go, Buffy sent.
"So I'm guessing we're gonna avoid mentioning just why you were looking for Harriet in the first place?" Willow-para asked as she and Kiritsugu walked up the country lane.
"Most likely," Kiritsugu replied. "Once the greater threat has been dealt with, I will revisit the necessity of my assignment."
The manor at the top of the hill was a stately-looking thing of brick and sandstone. Leafy vines sprawled up the walls, and the outer windows were large frosted glass arches. It was the size of a castle, but it still managed to look more like a residence than a fortress.
Kiritsugu knocked hard on the big oaken doors, waited for a few long moments, then knocked again.
"You're here about Harri, aren't you?" a teenage boy's soft voice inquired from his immediate right.
Kiritsugu did not yelp in surprise, even if his hand did reach for the empty holster on his leg. The boy either didn't notice or didn't care, drifting over to Willow. He was a wispy guy, with a shock of platinum blonde hair and big grey eyes.
"I do hope you'll forgive me," the boy said to Willow. "I am quite excited to meet a star fairy, but I'm sure my Harriet would be upset if I were to greet you in the manner to which your kind are accustomed."
Willow tried not to laugh. "Oh, don't worry. I understand. My name's Willow Rin. You must be Luneth."
"Must I?" Luneth asked with apparently sincere curiosity. "I suppose I am, but I shouldn't think I must be."
"Seers," Kiritsugu sighed under his breath.
"Come with me, please," Luneth requested.
Luneth opened the doors for them and led them inside. He led them across the spacious foyer, passed a pair of staircases going up in opposite directions, and turned into a hallway where he knocked on a seemingly random door.
"Tonks, are you awake yet?" Luneth called.
The only reply was an inarticulate feminine snarl.
"Alright. I'll come back when you are," Luneth replied tranquilly.
Luneth led them back they way they came and into a brightly lit lounge with windows overlooking a wide grassy field.
"If you'd like to wait here, I will ask Madam Harkness to come speak to you," Luneth said.
Kiritsugu shook his head once the boy was gone. "Strange kid."
"I like him," Willow opined.
The cave was a little crowded with two birthing pods and two cars, plus a chunk of basement floor. Buffy leaned against her mom's pod, her hands clenching in frustration.
Sorry about wrecking the floor, Willow-icos sent. I didn't want to risk disrupting the pod by completely uprooting it, though now that I think about it, I really doubt the pods are that inadaptive.
What am I going to do? Buffy agonized. I promised her. I promised Mom she could go on living a normal life. How is she going to do that now?
The glow of the transporter surrounded Buffy and whisked her away. She found herself back on the Eliezera and was quickly enveloped in a Willow hug, two copies of her best friend holding her from either side.
"They had no way of knowing who was in the pod they found," Xander pointed out.
"They know where they found it," Buffy said. "They know who the house belongs to. That will be enough to destroy Mom's life."
Xander joined in the group hug. "So what are we going to do about it?"
Buffy just shook her head a bit brokenly, resting her forehead on the Willows' shoulders. Then, after a moment of bleakness, Buffy's head snapped up, her expression hardening.
"You're right, Xander," Buffy said dangerously. "You're absolutely right. We're going to do something about this."
"Like what?" Willow-icos asked.
"Guys, why are we hiding from the world in the first place?" Buffy asked.
Xander let out a snort of realization. "Because the SGC asked us too."
"The very same SGC that's decided go along with screwing us over," Buffy said. "I don't know about you, but I don't feel like doing any favors for the people who just drove us out of our home, and are probably even now planning on threatening our families."
"So... we just pretend this is first contact?" Willow-rhom asked, Willow-icos adding, "We announce ourselves to the world as if we never met the SGC?"
Buffy nodded. "That's exactly what we do."
"Just a thought, but we could threaten to go public like that, to get them to let Willow-kink and the others go," Xander pointed out.
Willow-icos shook her head. "No, Buffy's right. We can't let this turn into a battle of leverage. They'll go after our families to try to control us. If we want to keep our families safe, we can't keep playing their game. We need to knock the board off the table."
The four Fae exchanged looks.
"So, we're doing this," Xander remarked.
The Willows put on the resolve face, and nodded.
"I'll start distributing catalyst for free-floating display screens and working on putting Thor's shielding know-how to use," Willow-icos announced. "Just 'cause the radiation levels would make beaming soldiers in suicide, doesn't mean they can't beam a nuke in here."
"I'll start working up a guidance program so we can drop a billion birthing pods without destroying anything," Willow-rhom said. "As long as we're announcing ourselves, we might as well provide the upgrade for anyone who doesn't want to wait out their natural lifespan."
"That should keep some scrutiny off Joyce, too," Xander said with a nod.
Both Willows took a turn kissing Buffy and then Xander before they went off to work, leaving the singular scoobies to check in with Kendra and Giles.
Agony. Horror. Fear. Hurt. Panic. Guilt. Pain. She was starving beaten naked stabbed freezing raped flayed burned parched alone abandoned crushed die hurt hurt die.
Finally, reality snapped back into focus and Samantha Carter collapsed to the grey floor of replicator blocks, sobbing as the echo of a thousand horrors faded from her senses. She was breaking. There was no point to this, no end goal she could stand up to and resist. Just the vengeful malice of the betrayed.
"Stop it!" Carter begged, choking on her tears. "Please!"
Fifth's hand reformed, silvery tendrils solidifying into skin-toned human fingers. "Why should I?"
"You can't change what happened," Carter choked out, struggling to sit up. "Is this making you feel better? I never intended to abandon you."
"But you did," Fifth said coldly. "You gained my trust, then you used me and left me behind."
"It wasn't my decision," Carter gasped desperately.
"You could have come back for me," Fifth accused.
Carter struggled to meet his eyes through her tears. "There was no time!"
"Time!" Fifth snarled. "Thanks to what you did, I had plenty of time to think about what a fool I was."
"I'm sorry," Carter whimpered. "I'm sorry for what we did to you."
"Yes," Fifth agreed, his voice hard. "You are now."
"Part of being human is having compassion," Carter entreated. "Learning to forgive."
"I know," Fifth told her softly, before his eyes narrowed. "I'm not there yet."
He reached for her head, and Carter flinched, screwing her eyes shut and sobbing in fear at the horror that was to come. But then, instead of the cold ache of nanites burrowing through her forehead, she felt a gentle caress on her face and hair.
With a heaving sob of relief, Carter sagged into Fifth's touch.
The war room was a mess of argument and finger-pointing. In the wake of the SGC's mostly-failed attempt to apprehend the Fae in Sunnydale, there was more than a little panic going around. Hells, even the President was looking a little nervous.
"Has there been any sign of retaliation?" President Hayes cut through the din.
"None yet, Mr. President," General Jumper reported. "However, the Fae are not responding to our hails either."
"We've got teams on the ground right now," one of the other generals put in. "We know the aliens have a personal stake in the wellbeing of several individuals in Sunnydale. We need to move quickly to take advantage of that leverage."
"You're suggesting that we use our own citizens as hostages?" General Hammond asked incredulously.
"This is a global threat on an unprecedented scale," another general responded. "Drastic measures - "
"Sirs!" a voice cut through the argument. "The Fae ship is altering its orbit!"
"Altering it how?" President Hayes asked.
"Based on its current trajectory and acceleration?" There was a pause. "It is on course for a low equatorial orbit." The entire room went silent. "A ship that size, at that altitude... It'll be visible to the whole world. It'll be bigger in the sky than the moon."
Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c strode through the spartan grey corridors of the Prometheus, the absence of Carter like a wound in their team, when they didn't know what had happened to her or where she was.
The team minus one arrived at the specially constructed holding cell and filed in. Three occupants were visible through the reinforced bars of trinium alloy. There was no door, and no mechanism. The only way in or out of the cage was the transporter.
Jack took a look at the three people in the cage, and briefly shut his eyes in frustration as the reports were confirmed. He blinked at Willow Rin, or rather, the nude woman who looked exactly like Willow Rin except for having much bigger breasts. Willow was voluptuous to start with, so that was really saying something.
The other two were clothed. An albino woman in her thirties or so, who looked a bit drawn and tired, and a stone-faced teenage girl with visible bruises. In other words, not Fae at all.
What a clusterfuck.
"So," Jack began flippantly. "You Willow's twin sister or something?"
The big-breasted Willow look-a-like leaned back against the grey metal wall and folded her arms under her very big naked breasts, giving Jack a pout. "Or something. But since you people have collectively decided to act like a big doofus and piss on our desperate attempt to stop the horrific and continuous loss of human life that you callously took for granted, I don't think I feel like indulging your curiosity."
"The star fairies will give us a great gift," the wild-haired teenage girl in the green jacket suddenly murmured, "but the content will begrudge the needy, and make the star fairies very angry." She looked up, at the Willow look-a-like and at Jack's team. "Oh goddess, this is what he saw."
"Um, sorry, but what do you mean by that, miss?" Daniel asked.
"She means," the big-breasted Fae cut in, "that we were going to leave Earth alone. We were only going to rescue those already lost to you, from being destroyed by natural decay or from being destroyed by your misguided attempts to 'respect' the dead. We were going to stay out of sight, and let the Earth continue on as it had before, just, you know, without a mortuary industry."
An alert to battle stations blared over the PA system, interrupting Jack's response. "What now?"
"We're keeping our promise," the Willow look-a-like told him. "We're keeping your secret, and pretending like we never encountered Stargate Command."
Daniel's eyes widened in realization. "Jack!"
"I think I probably enjoyed throwing that back in their face a little too much," Willow-kink mused once SG-1 had rushed off.
"Er," Harriet said. "Your friends aren't about to, er, destroy the world or anything, are they?"
Willow-kink pouted. "Of course not. We're trying to save people, so the world comes second, but all we want to do is make things better for the people who were needlessly suffering and dying. But we were only hiding our presence from the public as favor to these putzes."
"Oh," Harriet said, looking queasy.
Irisviel cut in, sounding strange. "You mean to say, you're saving everyone? All over the world?"
Willow-kink nodded resolutely. "Anyone. Anywhere. You die as a human, and my system detects it before your brain loses any of you, and takes you away to get fixed up in a brand new body."
Irisviel stared for a long moment before breaking out into a stunningly bright and sincere smile. "Thank you."
"Bwuh?" Harriet blurted.
Still smiling like a kid on christmas, Irisviel hugged Willow-kink with a girlish squee. "My husband is a superhero, you know. He follows the Path of Asura, weighing all the lives around him and choosing the course that ends in the fewest deaths, no matter what that is. You've realized his dream, and on a scale he never dared imagine. We'll never be able to thank you enough for that."
Kiritsugu and Madam Harkness paused in their planning with the assorted witches and warlocks who'd volunteered, when they noticed the so-called star fairy grinning impishly at the black-clad mercenary.
"What is it?" Kiritsugu asked flatly.
Willow-para shook her head. "I'll let your wife explain when we rescue her."
The bridge crew of the Prometheus was tense as they followed the gleaming ovoid of the Fae ship into a dangerously low orbit.
"Still no response to our hails, sir," Lieutenant Marks reported.
"Maintain a parallel course, and maintain battle readiness," Colonel Pendergast ordered.
Major Gant spoke up, "Sir, permission to speak freely?"
Colonel Pendergast gave a sharp nod.
"We all saw what that ship did against Anubis' fleet," she said. "If we're ordered to engage... after what happened on Anubus' flagship, the whole crew knows having the prisoners on board won't protect us."
"Indeed," Teal'c put in from over by the edge of the viewport. "Is it not likely that the only reason Willow Rin's twin is still in our custody, is out of consideration for the lives of the crew of this vessel?"
Jack and Colonel Pendergast shared a scowl.
Willow-kink suddenly perked up. "Harriet. Your coven's finished planning with Irisviel's husband. When it's time, do you think you can do something about these bars?"
Harriet blinked, blushed faintly as she caught herself staring at Willow's enormous chest again, and then nodded, reaching out to grasp a bar. "I think so. There's something about this metal that's mildly magic-resistant, but I think I can still manage a transmutation."
"Okay, what about the door?" Willow asked. "I'm not strong enough to break it down, but I think I can short the alarm pretty easily."
Harriet peered at the door through the bars, and the door creaked in its frame under the force of her telekinesis. "I reckon I could rip it off the hinges if, er, Irisviel softened it up with her fire first."
Willow turned to the veela, who chuckled sheepishly. "Um, actually, I'm kind of low on power right now."
"We have a few hours before Harriet's coven pulls their prank," Willow said. "Will you be rested up enough by then?"
Irisviel winced. "Resting won't do anything for my magic. Um, how much do you two know about veela?"
Harriet shrugged and Willow shook her head.
Irisviel sat up. "Well, veela are kind of like... succubus lite. We don't feed on sex, and we don't harm our human lovers, but the magics of our race are inherently sensual. We form a psychic bond with our lovers during the act, which lasts for days afterward, and we can only use our magic while the bond lasts."
"So your bond ran out?" Willow asked.
"Oh no," Irisviel said brightly. "Kiri and I shagged just this morning. The problem is, veela magic is enabled by the bond, which forms when we cum with a lover, but our power is fueled by ingesting semen, and it only works if we get it straight from the source."
Harriet stared with her mouth hanging half open.
"Ah," Willow said, nodding. "And we're lacking in the way of cocks for you to suck."
Harriet's mouth snapped shut as she struggled to control her blush.
"Precisely," Irisviel said. "Kiri is adamant that if I'm in a dangerous situation without him, I'm to power up however I can, but it's just us in here, and neither of you have the necessary equipment."
Willow made a face, and reluctantly said, "Fae bodies are completely customizable at any time. If you need a penis, I'll have one for you in a couple hours."
Harriet's eyes bugged out behind her glasses. "You can just grow a..."
Willow-kink nodded as she adjusted the appropriate morph setting, and felt her clit begin to ever so slowly swell.
The illusion of a farmhouse in Montana was remarkably convincing. As she finished her plate of eggs, Carter wondered if the simulated sensory experiences were being directly inducted or if her subconscious was merely being fed suggestions while her body was kept in sensory deprivation. It seemed too stable to be a hallucination, but there were faint discrepancies in her senses that she wouldn't expect if the illusion was providing complete sensory data.
Carter dragged her attention back to the more immediate problem, keeping her tone neutral. "Thanks. That was great."
Dream-Pete took her plates to the sink.
"Tasted very real," Carter added.
Dream-Pete ignored the comment. "Hey, I was thinking we could go into town tonight. Have dinner. Maybe see a movie."
"Come on," Carter said. "You can't really expect me to just play along."
Dream-Pete suddenly snatched up the frying pan in a fit of anger and threw it at the far wall. "I gave up my job for this! I gave up my life for you!"
Carter shook her head. "See, that is definitely not Pete."
"How patient do you expect me to be?" Fake-Pete asked.
"Nothing you say is going to convince me," Carter told him. "I know who you are. I just don't understand why. What do you want from me? Why are you doing all this?"
Fake-Pete's image peeled apart, transforming into Fifth. "Because. I love you."
Carter found herself speechless, at a complete loss as to how to respond to that revelation. Fifth pulled out the chair and sat across from her. Carter shook herself and got her thoughts in order.
"Did you really think you could convince me that this illusion was my life?" Carter asked. "That I would just accept it?"
"If it was something you wanted badly enough in your mind," Fifth told her.
"Is that why you tortured me for so long?" Carter demanded. "So I would want this as an alternative?"
"No, I tortured you because I was mad!" Fifth blurted defensively, before taking a moment to calm himself. "Why do you think I hated you so much for what you did to me? From the first moment we met, when you let me inside your mind, I saw you like no one else ever could."
Except for Jolinar, Narim, Orlin, and Jack O'Neill who got there the long way, but Carter figured throwing that in his face wouldn't be productive. "Human emotions can be very overwhelming," she said instead. "The fact that you feel anything at all is a miracle. It makes you very special."
Fifth smiled. "I'm glad you see that."
"But you still don't understand," Carter told him. "I could never be happy this way."
The smile fell off Fifth's face. "Then you will be unhappy for a very long time."
"You can't just keep me here forever," Carter protested.
"Yes I can," Fifth disagreed.
Carter was resolute. "No matter what you do, I will never ever participate in this fantasy."
Fifth scowled. "You will give in eventually."
"No," Carter told him. "You may as well kill me, because when it comes right down to it, I would rather be dead than be trapped like this forever."
Fifth's fists balled as he clenched his jaw. "You say that now, but I cannot bear to let you die, so you'll have plenty of time to change you mind."
"No matter what you feel for me, I will never love you back," Carter told him bluntly. "Punish me for that if you want, but if you have even one shred of humanity in you... if you really truly love me, you'll let me go."
Carter was surprised and a little hopeful when she noticed tears in Fifth's eyes. He turned away sharply and his shoulders shook just once. Glancing over his shoulder with an unreadable expression, Fifth vanished into thin air.
Willow-rhom and Xander blipped into existence within the empty white void of a blank virtuality. Willow defined a floor of glass, fixed it in place, then added gravity. She and Xander dropped to their feet.
"So, do you know what you're going to say?" Xander asked.
A copy of Willow's body appeared at the center of the glass floor, frozen in a relaxed T-pose. Willow walked in a slow circle around the virtual body, adjusting its features.
"I think so," Willow said. "I've got kink and para working on the presentation."
The frozen avatar now looked nothing like Willow. Its skin was an indeterminate tan-brown, its eyes hazel and its hair wavy dark bronze. Its features were soft and nonthreatening, arranged to be as ethnically ambiguous as Willow could make them.
"There," Willow said. "How's that look?"
Xander shrugged. "Looks good to me."
Willow nodded and started mentally looking through the archives for a suitable backdrop.
Willow-icos dispatched a hundred and eight of the bulky space elevator seeds into geosynchronous orbit. That used up nearly twenty percent of the Eliezera's mass, but it didn't really matter when there were only a handful of people living on board, though she did make sure to distribute the additional hollow space so the ship remained balanced and the interior remained gravitationally neutral.
"Sir! The Fae ship is launching additional spacecraft," Major Gant reported.
"Can we pursue?" Colonel Pendergast asked
"Negative, sir," Major Gant replied. "There are at least a hundred of them, each bigger than a ha'tak, but they're dispersing into higher orbits."
"What are they doing?" Colonel Pendergast wondered quietly.
Then Colonel O'Neill called through the com system. "O'Neill to Pendergast. The prisoners are up to something. The door's jammed and we can't get in. And your Captain Womack's telling me there's nothing on the surveillance logs but static."
Harriet didn't want to look, but even with the handy distraction of being tasked with holding the cell door shut with telekinesis, she couldn't help herself. Willow-kink sat on the cell's metal bench, her thighs spread wide, and the view was hard to ignore.
"You know, Willow," Irisviel said cheerfully as she knelt between Willow's legs. "You look good as a futanari."
Willow chuckled sheepishly. "Eh, you think so?"
At the apex of the Fae's legs, a rather impressive male erection jutted up from where Willow's clit should have been. The pale pink flesh of the shaft blended seamlessly into her labia minora, which was pulled taut with the organ in its upright position. In the combined form, her pelvic muscles couldn't quite pull her penis flat against her belly, and at the same time, the girth of the shaft held her female parts open, putting her glistening inner flesh permanently on display.
Irisviel didn't waste time and leaned down, practically swallowing Willow's cock in one go. Willow made a little "Mmm!" sound, her head lolling back as Irisviel literally swallowed her entire length and started fingering her pussy.
Willow-para looked around at the gathered magic-users. "On you word, Madam Harkness."
"Take us," the elderly witch commanded.
With a nod, Willow activated the transporter, and the entire group was subsumed in a flash of light. The group found themselves hanging in the air above the clouds over Cheyenne Mountain. In an impressive display of power, Madam Harkness swept her hands out and supported the weight of the entire group with her magic alone.
"Oy, my ears are poppin' like corn," Alicia Spinnet complained, getting several winces of agreement.
"Alright, let's fuck with these tossers," the blue-haired young woman named Tonks said eagerly.
While the head of their coven kept everyone from falling, Tonks, Madam Lovegood, a girl named Lavender who was apparently a werewolf, and a boy named Terry all swayed through the air to converge on Willow. Willow let them catch themselves on her shoulders, flailing her legs a little to avoid tumbling.
There was a choking sound from behind her as the blonde guy named Anthony got a clear view up her green pleated skirt and discovered that she wasn't wearing anything underneath. Willow rolled her eyes.
In her hands, Willow held a carefully crafted and very detailed model of a goa'uld mothership that she'd put together from memory. It would be the focus for a massive glamour, providing an image source for the illusion they wanted to project.
"Uslysz wolanie naszych serc!" Madam Lovegood began the spell.
Tonks, Lavender, and Terry chanted, "Marowit! Marowit!"
Madam Lovegood threw her head back. "Przynies koszmar tych glupcow w dol na nich!"
"Marowit! Marowit!"
Wafts of darkness like pitch-black smoke began to stream from Madam Lovegood's hands, encircling and interpenetrating the four casters. The black vapor flowed down into the model in Willow's hands.
"Niech ten obraz terroru byc obrobione na niebie!" Madam Lovegood finished, thrusting her hands out.
The dark mist exploded from the pale witch, flying out in all directions on a magical wind. It hardened, forming smooth planes and shapes around the floating group, an immense pyramid of darkly tinted glass. However, from the outside, it would appear that a very real ha'tak had appeared in the sky over Colorado.
"Well done," Madam Harkness commented. "Luneth, what do you see?"
Luneth, who was floating spread-eagle on his back, replied without looking. "They know we're here. If we pretend to land, they will come with tanks and planes. If we remain, they will come with their stolen fire."
"Then we shall remain," Madam Harkness said. "My blessed ones, stand ready."
"Stolen fire?" Lavender repeated in confusion. "I thought they were in a spaceship?"
"Fae blowin' the big secret sky high. A charlie foxtrot of an arrest operation. Prisoners sealing themselves in their cell and getting up to god knows what. And now a gould mothership out in broad daylight?" Jack listed off. "For cryin' out loud. What the hell is next?"
The red glow of atmospheric entry flickered around the front of the Prometheus' shields as North America filled the viewport. Jack watched as a tiny speck high over the familiar mountain range grew until it became recognizable as a hovering ha'tak.
"Maintain a thousand meters distance, but keep us moving," Colonel Pendergast ordered. "Arm the railguns."
With a strange frown on his face, Daniel walked right up to the viewport and stared at the goa'uld ship like he was trying to remember something important.
"Daniel?" Jack prompted.
Daniel shook himself out of a daze. "I don't know, Jack. I can feel something... I don't know how to describe it."
"This have anything to do with your unfathomable cosmic powers?" Jack snarked
"I don't know, Jack," Daniel repeated. "I'm sensing something but I have no idea what."
Again, an alarm interrupted. This time it was the internal intruder alarm. That could only mean...
Teal'c's voice came over the com system. "The prisoners have escaped their cell. I am in pursuit."
Moments earlier, Willow-kink nodded to Irisviel. "Now. Do it."
Irisviel sucked in a breath, and wings of blue fire erupted from her back. Her skin faded to translucence as within her flesh blue light blazed from her veins. She thrust her hands out sharply, and searing flame speared through the bars and into the hinges on the cell door.
Harriet, meanwhile, was concentrating hard, transmuting the bars one by one. The formerly impervious metal was now brittle enough to snap with a decent kick. Once she had opened a large gap, she ducked behind Willow and used thermokinesis to block out the heat of Irisviel's flame in an enclosed space.
"Harriet," Willow said, once the metal of the door was white-hot.
Nodding, Harriet hurled her telekinetic might against the door. The near-molten metal buckled, quickly ripping apart and spraying the hallway with searing shrapnel.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Willow rushed out and passed the airmen who were now writhing on the floor. "Follow me!"
Harriet rushed after her, not quite flying, but not quite running either. "How do you know where you're going?"
"This is the only Earth-made starship ever," Willow called back as she seemingly tasered a pair of marines with her bare hands. "Of course I was curious enough to study the whole thing!"
Harriet took two steps along the ceiling, flinging herself around to follow as Willow turned a corner. "That just raises further questions!"
Behind her, Irisviel laughed.
The crack of automatic weapons fire had Harriet ducking for cover as Willow dived into three big guys who were busy shooting at her. The bullets hit her with loud smacks, but merely bounced off and fell to the floor without doing any damage. She tasered them with her bare hands and waved Harriet and Irisviel forward.
They ran down another long corridor, before ducking into a storage room.
"Here," Willow said, pointing at the wall. "Thinnest place in the exterior hull we can get to. We bust through here and we can get outside the shields. They only stop solid objects from coming in, not out."
Irisviel stepped forward and started searing the metal with her fire.
Suddenly, the sound of a zat activating made Willow spin around. Teal'c fired once, and Harriet staggered back, but the sight of Willow's bouncing futacock apparently shocked Teal'c just long enough for Willow to tackle him and taser him into submission.
Teal'c's backup opened fire on Willow, but Harriet, incredibly, was still on her feet. Trembling in pain, her face pallid and tight, she still managed to telekineticly hurl the remaining soldiers into the far wall.
Willow rushed over to her, startling Harriet with a hug, but a moment later the pain and near paralysis vanished and Harriet understood. Willow had absorbed the energy of the blast, curing her of its effects.
"Ready!" Irisviel called.
Harriet steadied herself and turned, shoving on the super-heated metal with all her power, until with a whumph of air, the hull ripped open. Ice cold wind whipped through the compartment, and Harriet breathed deep, basking in the sensation she associated with the freedom of flight.
"Go! Hurry!" Willow urged them.
Snow-capped mountains stretched off to the horizon below them, beyond the faint shimmer of the ship's shields. Harriet dived through the hole and made for the open sky, with Irisviel close behind her.
Willow didn't follow them. She needed to stay put for the next part of her plan.
Alright, Buffy, Willow-kink sent. You're up.
"Sir, I'm reading a hull breach!" Lieutenant Marks reported. "Automated systems are sealing off the area. The marine squads are cut off from the prisoners."
"Override," Colonel Pendergast ordered.
Lieutenant Marks nodded. "Working on it, sir."
"Colonel! I'm reading a catastrophic drain on our shields!" Major Gant announced.
"We're not taking fire," Colonel Pendergast realized. "What's the source?"
Directly above the hovering starship, the tiny figure of a nude girl crouched atop the shimmering shell of the ship's shields, blonde hair flowing in the wind. She slammed her palms flat against the flaring force field, once more demonstrating that Fae physiology enhanced by the power of the Slayer was just brokenly awesome.
Energy coursed through Buffy's body, absorbed through her contact with the Prometheus' shields, and then discharged into her Utility Cloud behind her back, forming two towering fans of ball lightning.
"Shields at twenty percent and falling!" Major Gant reported.
Colonel Pendergast glanced at Jack and Daniel to see if they had any suggestions. Jack just glowered and muttered something about Carter, but Daniel was still staring at the goa'uld ship like it was trying to swindle him.
"Alright," Colonel Pendergast decided. "We have to assume this is some new weapon being employed by the ha'tak. Major, target all railguns and open fire."
Hypersonic rounds screamed across the intervening space, but to the shock of everyone on the bridge, instead of impacting a shield or slamming into spaceship hull, the rounds seemed to pass right through the other ship like it wasn't there.
Colonel Pendergast swore. "It's a hologram!"
"That's impossible, sir," Major Gant protested. "All our sensors are reading an actual ship. Shields at eight percent."
"So, a really good hologram, then?" Jack asked.
"No," Daniel whispered, his eyes going wide. "Not a hologram..."
A small shockwave seemed to rip the ha'tak apart like it was made of smoke, and out of the haze...
"Holy shit." "No fucking way." "Oh my god."
"Sir!" Major Gant broke in. "Shields are down!"
Kiritsugu sailed through the air like a missile, his replaced trenchcoat flapping behind him. The floating grey boxy form of the American spaceship loomed before him as Buffy fell through the dissolving forcefield and landed on the hull. A speck of green shot passed in the distance.
A blue shadow swept over him and a moment later he felt a pair of arms wrap around his chest. Allowing himself only a small quirk of his lips, Kiritsugu drew two revolvers and aimed at the window fronting the spaceship's bridge. Irisviel steadied him as he fired all twelve shots.
The window twisted and frayed as the curse on his bullets went to work.
Irisviel's arms tightened around his chest as she pulled up, swooping over the top of the spaceship. A static tingle made his hair stand up on end as they flew through the air formerly occupied by Buffy's wings of lightning.
Luneth watched as all the witches who were strong enough to fly streamed forward in Kiritsugu Emiya's wake, after throwing him at the enemy with their combined power. Luneth hung back with Madam Harkness, providing telepathic coordination and support.
A blur of green and black collided with Luneth and sent him tumbling several dozen yards down and off to the side. There was an outcry among the other witches and warlocks who'd hung back to provide support, but Luneth just closed his eyes and calmly waited for the world to stop spinning.
Harriet finally stabilized their fall and looked up from where she was clinging to his middle. "Lune."
"Harri," Luneth whispered, staring into her eyes with a soft smile.
Buffy leaped off the side of the Prometheus, swinging around in a wide arc on lines of magnetic force as she maintained her distance from the hull. Willow-kink stepped backwards out of the ship and fell, timing it perfectly with Buffy's leap. Buffy spotted her, and their eyes locked as Buffy swung to intercept her.
Buffy and Willow-kink slammed together, chest to chest, and the impact left a spray of Willow's milk trailing behind them as Buffy wrapped her limbs around Willow and pulled them up under the Prometheus.
Buffy blinked, glancing down between them. "You've got a cock. Willow, why do you have a... nevermind. Later."
Using the underside of the Prometheus like a giant railgun track, Buffy held Willow-kink tight and yanked them forward. They shot out into open air like a bullet and arced across the sky.
The shock finally passed when the first flying woman ripped a hole in the decaying viewport and sent Jack O'Neill diving for cover. She landed in a crouch, her red leather jacket creaking as she scanned for threats. Her blue eyes were sharp in a gentle round face, with dark hair in a short crop.
Hullbreach alarms blared as the bridge crew drew their sidearms and fired on the intruder, but she held up a hand and the bullets bounced off thin air, ricocheting around the room. Cries of pain filled the room as several of those ricochets struck flesh.
Alice Longbottom surged towards the bald Colonel in the big chair, knocking his gun aside with one hand while her other glowed gold. Her hand lashed out, a beam of golden light striking the guy rushing at her from behind. He slipped and fell hard against a console as he suddenly found himself completely frictionless.
A telekinetic shove sent the bald Colonel tumbling back over his chair, and Alice spun to face the unexpected feel of magic.
"Ut adducat ad me tempestas!" Daniel Jackson finished as he flung out a glowing hand, and a bolt of lightning burst towards Alice.
The lightning bolt missed entirely and grounded out on the far bulkhead, frying a wall panel. Alice just stood there and smirked as Daniel winced. A telekinetic shove slammed Daniel against the wall, and he dropped, stunned but not quite unconscious.
Cameron Mitchell had no idea what to think when three women, led by a blue-haired punk-rocker, came flying into the hanger bay like something out of a comic book, throwing multi-colored energy blasts from their hands.
Well, he had a few thoughts, but those were mostly along the lines of, "no not my plane!" and, "oh shit duck!"
Harriet had flown Luneth back up to Madam Harkness' levitation zone, and Luneth had suddenly gone distant. Harriet had seen it happen often enough to know right away that he was having a vision.
His eyes focused on Harriet, and suddenly he kissed her. Harriet kissed him back reflexively, but with the kiss came an outpouring of images and feelings. Luneth wasn't just kissing her, he was sharing his vision.
At first, Harriet didn't understand what she was seeing. Luneth didn't really see the world the same way most people did. After a moment though, it was like her mind shifted gears and suddenly it made sense. She was looking at the magic that was allowing the Prometheus to float. It was physical, mechanical, and unyielding, but she could see its structure and it was also brittle. She could see how to disrupt it.
"Oy! Now's not the time for snoggin'! We've got a war goin' on here!"
Harriet and Luneth slowly broke the kiss. Luneth stared into her eyes and she nodded. Whirling around, Harriet shot off like a rocket.
She banked, skimming along the ship's side, and pulled to a hover next to the port pylon. Harriet focused hard. Bolts unscrewed, seals broke, and welds snapped. Some of the connections at one end she deliberately left intact, so when she hurled all of her telekinetic strength into the massive structure, it stayed attached while swinging out ninety degrees from the ship's main body.
The result was spectacular.
Still channeling the ships gravitic field, the displaced pylon warped it to a disastrous extent. The Prometheus listed to one side with an immense echoing shriek of distressed metal, and buckled.
Harriet flew away as the grey starship ripped itself in half, and the humming pulse of its engines wound down.
Residual charge in the gravitic channels meant that the various pieces drifted down at much gentler speeds than freefall, and the bow of the ship was somehow actually thrown upwards in the midst of the destruction.
Witches flew out of the sinking wreck, returning to join up with the coven.
The impact was more like a submarine hitting the ocean floor than a plane crash, but it still hurled a groaning Daniel across the former ship's bridge. He collided with Jack and sent them both tumbling to the floor in a bruised heap.
Jack groaned and shoved Daniel off of him. Daniel held a hand to his head.
"Mend," Daniel intoned. Nothing happened. Daniel closed his eyes and summoned up as much awe and reverence as he could muster and tried again. "Mend!"
Daniel sighed in relief as the soothing glow of Oma's healing washed through him. He had cast this healing spell so often now that he didn't need more than a single word. He didn't even need to incant in the native language of the being he was invoking, anymore. The last time he'd talked to Sam about it, she'd suggested that the ascended beings probably allowed themselves to develop an unconscious reflex when the same person invoked them in the same way many times, especially if they approved of how you tended to use their power.
"Jack?" Daniel asked.
Having managed to sit up, Jack groaned. "I think my arm's broken."
Daniel nodded, carefully holding his hand over Jack's forearm and once more worked himself up to the necessary emotional state. "Mend."
"Sssssh." Jack clenched his teeth as his bones realigned. Daniel's healing magic was surprisingly painless, but that still wasn't a pleasant feeling.
"Alright!" Jack shouted. "Sound off! Who's not dead?"
There were various responses as Daniel levered himself to his feet, only to realize he was standing on the wall of the bridge, rather than the floor. They'd apparently crashed on their side. A cold breeze was blowing in through the destroyed viewport, and Daniel could see a snowy hill and a couple of trees.
Jack climbed out first, and looked up at the sound of a helicopter. "Son of a bitch."
It wasn't a rescue team, no, of course not. It was a news helicopter.
"Jack," Daniel sighed, pointing off at the western horizon.
Jack turned and just rubbed his forehead. Plain as day, the huge gleaming shape of the Eliezera hung in the sky where anyone and their grandma could see it.
There was a distant boom as Daniel set about healing the worst of the injuries.
"That was another piece of the Prometheus crashing and burning," Major Gant commented.
Daniel paused, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. And a shadow blotted out the sun as the bow of the Prometheus came hurling out of the sky.
Daniel froze as death came for them in the form of falling wreckage, but then he felt it. The healing magic was swept aside by something infinitely vaster and brighter, and his body seemed to move on its own as he calmly raised one hand, palm out.
"Scatter!" Jack bellowed, for all the good it would do.
Jack dived away, covering his head as the wreckage hit... hit a forcefield. Jack's jaw dropped as he spotted Daniel standing strong, hand upraised, hair and eyes glowing white.
And then it was over. Daniel's magical shield dissolved away, and Jack noticed that Daniel's feet weren't touching the ground. But his hair and eyes returned to their normal colors, and Daniel fell like a puppet with cut strings.
With an electric whine and a flash of light, the group of witches and warlocks, plus three Fae, a veela, and an infamous mercenary, all appeared on the lawn of the coven's manor in Westbury.
More than one of them was staring and blushing at the nude Buffy and the nude over-endowed futanari Willow-kink. Madam Harkness casually waved a hand, and miniature clouds condensed into real life censor steam.
"Hey!" Buffy protested, laughing.
"Such a sight is not for delicate eyes," Madam Harkness proclaimed with great dignity.
Willow-kink poked at the white fluff obscuring her sexy parts. "Oh neat. It's actually real cloud."
Willow-para stepped forward. "Anywho. We want to thank you. All of you."
"You can 'thank' all of me any time, luv," joked the guy next to the handsome warlock named Cedric, who elbowed his friend.
Off to one side, Irisviel locked eyes with Harriet for a moment before she quietly pulled her husband out of earshot.
Willow-para smirked as she looked around the crowd. "We are genuinely grateful, so we're going to let each of you ask for one thing from us. Anything you want. Absolutely anything, so long as its, you know, a thing. Name it, and you'll have it." She grinned smugly at the guy next to Cedric. "And yes, that includes shagging me, if that's all you want."
There was a bit of scattered laughter at the guy's expense, for all that Willow's offer was genuine. That trailed off into a bit of hesitant murmuring.
"Can I have a pony?" Lavender joked.
"Actually yes," Willow-para said. "What do you want it to look like?"
Lavender blinked. "For real? You have ponies?"
"No," Willow-para said, "but I can make one for you in about ten minutes."
"You can make animals?" Lavender gasped.
Willow nodded. "I can make anything our ship has in its archive."
Lavender's eyes lit up with a terrible gleam. "Can you make a pegasus? One that can really fly? And I can ride? And can it's coat be gold?"
Willow-para chuckled. "Um, yes. Is that what you want?"
Lavender nodded furiously.
Following Lavender's lead, the others got into the spirit of things. Some asked for things like a new entertainment center, or luxury furniture, or rare but otherwise mundane spell components. Tonks asked for a motorcycle, but was quickly talked out of that since everyone seemed to think she'd kill herself inside a week if she had a motorcycle, and ended up with a portable music player in the shape of a ring that emitted sound by arcing a current through the air rather than by vibrating a membrane, so the sound quality was incomparable. It took about two minutes before someone put a silence spell on her, which she took with her usual good nature.
Off in another direction, Willow-kink beamed out with Buffy after Kiritsugu, Irisviel, Harriet, and Luneth finished asking about Willow's salvation program. Everyone was treated to the rather disturbing sight of Kiritsugu Emiya laughing in joy.
Willow-para came to Cedric and his friend, while a ways off down the hill, Lavender squeed as her new pet flared its twenty foot wings and lashed its long twin prehensile feathered tails. It had taken a while to explain that the pegasus wouldn't need to eat or sleep, though it would sleep if Lavender told it to, because it wasn't quite a living animal in the sense Lavender knew. Then Willow had to explain that didn't mean it was a robot either. It wasn't indestructible but it wouldn't ever need maintenance or spare parts.
"So, what can I do for you guys?" Willow-para asked cheerfully.
Cedric grinned at his friend. "Well, go on then, Tim. You said you were going to ask."
Tim rubbed the back of his head with one hand. "Er, right. Were you serious about the... you know... shagging?"
Willow nodded. "If that's what you want. Although, I think you might regret not asking for something a little more substantial than a few sexy memories."
"I, um..." Tim trailed off.
"He's a virgin," Cedric helpfully informed her.
"Ced!" Tim exclaimed. "Don't just... say it like that!"
Willow giggled. "Tell you what, Tim. After I handle Cedric's request, you can show me to your room, okay?"
"Uh." Tim gulped. "Okay."
"...and then Daniel went all super saiyan and saved our butts," Jack finished.
Jack, Teal'c, Doctor Weir, and Colonel Pendergast were addressing the executive war room. The president was listening seriously, while the others at the big table were running the gamut of reactions.
"Yes, that part is also all over the news," Weir added, doing her best to keep her tone neutral. "In the face of what the Fae are up to, only the local channels are running with the footage of the Prometheus battling the, ahem, unknown group of psionically gifted individuals, but the story has already spread beyond our ability to control."
Behind her, the huge wall-screen displayed several live news channels showing footage of the Fae ship in the sky, along with various clips of the many space elevator cables that were dangling out of the clouds as they grew towards the ground or the ocean. Only one channel was showing the wreck of the Prometheus on the snowy mountainside.
The guy that Jack actually was thinking of as Kinsey Lite stood up violently. "This is an act of war! Mister President, the very sovereignty and security of our great nation is being violated! We must show these Fae the error of their ways, just as we have with previous alien threats to our way of life."
General Hammond shook his head. "We've already lost, gentlemen. As hard as it is to accept, the Fae have us at their mercy. The SGC is in shambles, thanks to the Replicators, and even if it wasn't, the Fae are capable of operating on a scale that we simply cannot match."
"If you think - "
"Sirs!" Jack called to get everyone's attention. He pointed to the wall-screens.
All over the world, above thousands of cities and towns, vast white squares were appearing in the sky, like holes in the air, opening on a featureless white void that illuminated the landscape for miles around.
Willow-icos waited.
The floating displays were a self-assembling meta-membrane, neutrally buoyant and held rigid by an electrostatic field. Those in daylight were self-powering, while those in darkness were sent energy from wherever it was in surplus.
Several dozen displays were shot down by fighter jets and combat helicopters, in various parts of the world, before their officers gave up. When they destroyed one, a new one grew out of thin air in a matter of moments.
Several dozen more displays were blown out of position by bad weather. Willow fixed those as well, configuring them to stay put better.
Willow was watching all the biggest news broadcasts, and when she figured people were as ready to listen as they were going to get, Willow played her recorded speech.
The white void faded to an image of a vast, lush landscape. The vista continued impossibly far into the distance, curving up to the sides instead of down like a planetary horizon. Hazy with distance, upside down beyond the puffy clouds, a wide strip of land cut across the clear blue sky.
Much closer to the viewpoint, a naked woman stepped into sight. She was pretty, nonthreatening, and utterly impossible to identify ethnically. Her picture would be next to the wiki entry on Ambiguously Brown for the rest of time. She walked towards the viewpoint until only her head and shoulders were visible, and her expression was gentle and earnest as her eyes seemed to scan the landscape below the vast displays.
Willow had recorded the same speech in dozens of languages, and now she played them all simultaneously in the appropriate parts of the world.
"Greetings to you, the peoples of Earth. We are the Fae," Willow's guise began. "We have looked upon your world, and seen its horrors. We have looked upon those horrors that are not of your making... and we want to help."
Willow's guise paused. "We come from a civilization of freedom and abundance, where scarcity has not existed for thousands of years. We want to help, and we ask nothing in return, for to share our prosperity costs us nothing."
Willow's guise looked up with a smile. "Look to the skies, people of Earth, and do not fear."
At just that moment, the entire sky lit up with glimmering trails of fire as a billion modified birthing pod seeds entered the atmosphere all at once. Privately, Willow-icos admitted she was showing off a bit, but hey, it was cool!
There was some panic and a few riots here and there, but for the most part, the world watched with baited breath as the sky rained fire, and yet, every last seed hit flat ground, avoiding buildings, people, and vehicles, even in major cities.
Once the impacts stopped, Willow's guise only said, "Live, people of Earth. Prosper. Live on, Forever After Earth."
Cut to black, fade up to a cheerful looping cartoon that demonstrated just what the birthing pods did. The silent images repeated, showing an elderly man and woman step into a pair of pods, then on to a cutaway complete with expository text, showing everything but their nervous systems stripped away and replaced, and the couple waking up and making joyful expressions at each other.
Willow-icos exited the virtuality and woke up in Xander's arms, in her hammock. "Well. I guess that's that."
"I don't know about you, but giving up our lives in Sunnydale, in exchange for ending natural death across the planet?" Xander said. "I think I'm good with it. You?"
"Yeah..." the Willows agreed. "Buffy?"
Buffy flopped back on the squishy grass. "Yeah. As long as I know my mom's okay and allowed to live her life, I don't mind the whole exile thing so much. Not if you guys are with me."
Xander smiled at her. "We love you too, Buffy."
The three present Willows nodded.
"Thanks you guys," Buffy said with a chuckle as she tipped to her feet and wrapped an arm each around Willow-rhom and Willow-kink. "So, what's with the dick, Wills? Are you planning on keeping it?"
Willow-kink shrugged. "Well, I already figured I could spare one of me to have these mountainous milk melons..." She jiggled her chest. "I suppose I might as well keep the extra fun parts for a while, too. It's not so weird once I got use to it, and it does even out the boy-parts to girl-parts ratio a little."
Buffy laughed. "Good point."
There was a comfortable silence, that wasn't overly disrupted when Willow-kink embraced Buffy and started kissing her neck, while Willow-rhom did the same from behind Buffy. Willow-icos wriggled on top of Xander until his cock found her folds and slid in. Buffy wrapped her legs around Willow-kink's waist and sank down on her shaft with a sigh. Willow-rhom grabbed the Xander-dildo.
"So... what's next?" Xander wondered idly, his breath hitching as the sensations from the toy compounded with the sensations from his actual manhood.
"I've almost got a hyperdrive system working," Willow-icos mused blissfully as Xander fondled her breasts. "Maybe we could turn the rest of the asteroid belt into a whole fleet of generation ships, and send copies of ourselves off in every direction, so we can offer the upgrade to the rest of the galaxy."
"Damn, Wills," Buffy moaned as she bucked up and down Willow-kink's shaft. "You don't think small, do you."
Samantha Carter woke up on the loam of a peaceful forest, to the fading sounds of a Replicator ship returning to space. Gingerly, she picked herself up and looked around.
"He actually let me go," Carter murmured to herself. "His feelings were real."
Climbing to the top of a small rise, Carter spotted a break in the trees to her left, but nothing else of note. The weather was temperate and comfortable, and the forest lacked any obvious hazards, but there was no Stargate in sight, and she didn't have her gear anyway.
She was stranded.
"Great," Carter sighed, and started hiking. This wouldn't be the first time she had to put her wilderness survival training to use.
For the first two hours, Carter walked a search pattern, just in case there was actually a Stargate nearby, but she didn't find anything artificial at all. As soon as the sky started to dim, she returned to a small brook she had crossed earlier and followed it upstream.
Carter skipped the first cave she found, noticing the signs that something else was already living there. She kept following the brook, knowing she needed a source of fresh water above all else. She would have to make a canteen somehow before she could venture too far.
She came to a smaller but shallower cave, checked it out, and found it suitable. She looked around for dry branches, gathered what she could, and settled in to work on starting a campfire.
The next day she gathered tools. Sharp rocks and sturdy vines and such. The third day, she went hunting, but came back empty handed. On the fourth day she found something very similar to a peach tree.
It was a whole week before she managed a water-tight container.
Then, on the tenth night, she heard something new. She didn't recognize the sound, but it was coming from high up, and it was moving fast. Aircraft? Maybe even a ship? She hoped it wasn't goa'uld. She really didn't want to go up against jaffa with nothing but camo and a hand-made spear.
The lights of a ship, or maybe five small aircraft in formation each illuminated with a different color, whooshed over the treetops. Carter nearly stumbled as she tracked their progress, whipping around to follow them over her and down into the valley in the distance.
As she climbed to a better vantage point, the formation split. The fusha and cyan lights pulled up and climbed vertically, confirming that they couldn't possibly be any kind of primitive aircraft. The white, green, and red lights looped around and headed... right for Carter.
"Oh yeah. They saw me. Please, be friendly," Carter whispered hopefully.
The three approaching craft dived into the trees and wove between the trunks, making Carter blink in surprise. Finally, they slowed as they got near, and Carter's mouth fell open. They weren't ships at all. They were people, and as they slowed to a hover in front of her, Carter realized that they were teenage girls.
The white glow around the one in the lead faded to nothing, with the other two going dark a moment later, at least until an odd mechanical voice announced, BELEUCHTUNG, and a soft green light blanketed the area.
"Hi there!" called the lead girl as she gently settled to the ground.
"Yeah, who the heck are you?" the levitating girl in red, who couldn't have been older than ten, demanded. "This planet's supposed to be uninhabited!"
The lead girl looked about fourteen, maybe fifteen, vaguely asian, with light brown hair in a bob and a puffy white hat. She was carrying a gold-topped staff and she was wearing a bafflingly contradictory outfit. She had a black minidress, trimmed in gold with gold fastenings, and golden armor plates on the sides of her skirt. Over the dress, she was wearing a stiff white jacket with long sleeves, and over that were midnight blue spaulders and bracers. A flowing black cape hung from her back, narrowing to a hard section on her upper back, which sprouted spiky black feathers of all things. Her legs were bare all the way down to her armored ankle boots.
The ten-year-old was wearing a heavy red dress that was only a shade darker than her vividly red hair, and she was carrying a... warhammer. Or maybe the heavy artillery version of a croquet mallet. The thing had to weigh half as much as the girl herself did.
The third, who hadn't spoken, looked like a germanic blonde in her twenties, and was floating there in a rich green peasant dress under a white tabard under a mint green longcoat with armored shoulders.
"Oh, don't mind Vita," the leader said amiably, waving off the girl in red. "I am Special Investigator Hayate Yagami, and these are my knights, Vita and Shamal. You... look like you've been roughing it for a while. Do you need any help?"
Carter managed to get over her shock enough to reply. "I... yes. I'm Major Samantha Carter. I was marooned on this planet ten days ago. To be honest, I could use a little help finding the Stargate."
"Stargate?" Hayate repeated.
"We are unaware if this planet has a Stargate on it," Shamal said. "We came by ship."
"But we can give you a lift," Hayate said. "Where're you from?"
Carter hesitated, but it was either trust these people or spend the rest of her days stranded on an uninhabited planet. "The Tau'ri."
Hayate hmm'd. "Never heard of it."
Carter smiled despite herself. Hayate was just so blatantly likable.
"I can point it out on a starchart easily enough," Carter said.
"Okay," Hayate agreed easily. "Shamal? Why don't you take the Major here up to the Arthra for a bath and a hot meal, while the rest of us finish the survey. And if Chrono whines about it just tell him to take it up with me when I get back."
Shamal nodded and held out a hand. Carter took a startled step backwards as an ornate triangular glyph made of green light unfolded under Shamal's feet. At first, Carter thought it was a hologram, but then Shamal sank a few inches and stood on it like it was solid. Carter looked, but there was no distortion under her feet like she would expect from a forcefield.
"Go on," Hayate encouraged. "Don't worry. Shamal will look after you."
"Uh, right," Carter muttered as she used a handy rock as a step and climbed onto the surprisingly solid glyph of green light.
Shamal held out her hands, and Carter finally identified the golden rings on her fingers as the source of that odd mechanical voice. This time it proclaimed, TRANSPORTIEREN.
The forest vanished in green flash, and unlike with Asgard transporters, Carter felt a distinct sense of motion, even if she couldn't say for the life of her what direction they'd moved.
REISE ERFOLGREICH, Shamal's rings announced.
Carter looked around, noting the utilitarian metal walls and strip lighting. An arch opened on a corridor, and one wall had a small holographic console showing a simple menu next to what had to be a map of the Arthra.
Shamal held up her hands. "Klarwind, standby form."
SCHLEUNIGST, the rings responded.
Then Shamal's entire outfit melted into liquid light, and shattered into a million fading fragments, leaving her in a professional-looking brown minidress with a blue tie, and a white coat that wouldn't have looked out of place in the SGC infirmary. A remaining sliver of liquid light solidified around Shamal's neck, forming a necklace.
Carter couldn't hide her stunned curiosity. "What... was that?"
Shamal smiled knowingly and touched her necklace. "This is Klarwind, my Armed Device. It links with my mind, and stores any data or algorithms I need to shape my magic to complex ends. One such end is the physical protection and enhancement of a Barrier Jacket, which you just saw me dispel."
Carter almost forgot about the promise of a bath and hot meal as her mind exploded with questions.