Somewhere in Sunnydale, the summer of 1999
Aaron the assassin wasn't going to wait around for Buffy to return home from Westworld, so he packed his things in his magic bag and left Sunnyhell. For his part, Spike was glad the bloody git had left. { There's too many Big Bads in town as it is... }
Still, Spike knew things had gotten pretty good around here nowadays, all things considered. They'd gotten rid of one of the Slayers that had been annoying him for nearly two years, even if it hadn't been the blonde one he'd have preferred to sink his fangs into. And until Betty came back (hopefully *without* a newbie sidekick now that the Jamaican one was dead), he and his undead minions basically had free reign over the town. Especially since the Mayor of this pestilential burg was now finally dead and gone!
"Pass the word around, you lot! Tonight, it's an all you can eat buffet!" the British vampire called out, as Drusilla giggled and the all the other vampires cheered loudly.
Westworld theme park, earlier that day
Somewhat troubled, Neaise kept an eye on Glory to make sure she didn't find the Key. Since the monks that had been its guardians had been killed by the Gunslinger before they could fashion it into Buffy's sister, the Key was now in a different form than 'Dawn Summers'. The Key wasn't in Westworld, or even the DELOS facility for that matter, even if Glory didn't know that.
Just goes to show, you really shouldn't pay attention to unsubstantiated rumors.
Additionally, Neaise didn't want the hell god to drain Xander's mind of its essence. She could care less if Glory drained the Slayer's or his girlfriend's mind of sanity, but not him. Maybe there were some benefits to being Xander Harris, empowered demon magnet that he was...
The tiefling watched Glory drain a couple of guests' minds, rendering them completely insane. Not surprising - Neaise knew it'd been a while since the hell god had gotten some human energy to feed on. Still, it was a stupid thing to do as Jareth's minions picked up on it immediately and reported it to their boss. Too bad for her, Glory had no idea that more than one person was spying on her...
Moving fast, Neaise hid herself from Glory sensing her. { This could get very messy... }
Elsewhere, the stagecoach arrived at the remote cabin. It didn't take long before all the luggage was removed from the vehicle, and Xander and Cordelia entered the cabin as the coachmen carried the luggage inside.
"Just dump them here," Cordelia ordered them, before telling Xander to start a fire in the fireplace. The robot coachmen obeyed her orders, as did her boyfriend, before the robots left and drove the stagecoach away back to town. And once the fire was crackling in the hearth, it was just him and her alone.
"Setting the mood there, dork?" Cordelia smiled sexily at him.
"Yeah, I guess..." Xander managed to say, before his girlfriend practically attacked him and fastened her lips to his. Needless to say, it didn't take long for their clothes to start flying in various directions and the two crazy kids to head to the bedroom. And unlike at the saloon, they didn't have to worry about anyone getting annoyed by how loud they got...
Later on, basking in the afterglow, they both felt that *this* was the way it was all supposed to be. Not having to worry about world-endage or patrolling for the undead or whatever. Just the two of them, their bed and a whole lot of condoms!
Elsewhere in his private lab, Jareth had no idea there was a... non-guest in Westworld. And that the non-guest was Angel.
Once the sun set, Angel knocked out a robot cowboy and took its clothes for a disguise, before hiding the robot in a water barrel. { I'll just keep an eye on Buffy for the time being, } the ensouled vampire thought to himself. So he headed for the saloon, but kept away from the guests – even the Scooby gang had no idea that Angel was present in Westworld. And thanks to centuries' worth of concealment skills, Jareth didn't know the undead Irishman was present either.
One of Jareth's minions said to his immediate superior, "Sir, we have a situation on the train."
The demon frowned; the wild west train was a relatively new addition to the theme park, and there had been some concern about it breaking down at some point. "Details?"
The minion gestured to a nearby monitor. "See for yourself."
The demon saw Faith fighting some train robbers aboard the train, before she threw one of the robotic thieves out a window. The Slayer then kicked another train robber in the face, and the female robot went flying all the way down the train carriage. "Yeah!"
Faith smiled as she beat up the other train robbers. Once it was all done, all the bad guys lay unmoving on the floor and all the robotic passengers started to cheer for the Boston girl.
{ I have to admit, I could definitely get used to this! } Faith quickly returned the stolen belongings to the passengers, accepting their thanks before she sat down in a seat next to her Watcher, Diana Dormer. The Harvard professor (who was roughly the same age as Giles' father) was wearing a period costume dress, while Faith was dressed as a cowgirl with her guns, holsters and ten-gallon hat.
Faith's Watcher sighed to herself before saying, "Enjoy yourself, Faith?"
The brunette Slayer nodded with a huge smile. "Better believe it! Still can't get over how lifelike all this is, y'know. It must be costing you a fortune, though, right?"
Diana sighed again. "I told you before, Faith, don't worry about that. My salary from Harvard pays well enough, and we both needed a vacation from Boston this summer. It wasn't that long ago those rumors about Kakistos being in Massachusetts started circulating, if you'll recall..."
Curious historical sidebar, but in this timeline, since Kendra had lasted over a year longer than she otherwise would have – Diana had ordered her charge not to go anywhere near the ancient Greek vampire, once the rumors of the undead creature's arrival in Boston had started making the rounds in the demon underground. And seeing as she was just an ordinary human (Potential Slayer, but still), Faith had listened to her Watcher – which had inadvertently saved Diana's life...
The two women subsequently relaxed and enjoyed the train ride, not knowing there was another Slayer in Westworld. Just as Buffy didn't know about them. The train was taking them to another town in the theme park, where a gun shooting competition was scheduled the next day - something Faith planned on entering, and hopefully even win.
In Jareth's office, the demon sat at his desk, looking forward to watching the Scooby gang fight valiantly and die - but mostly to seeing Buffy fight his vampire robots. Then Jareth stood up, heading to where the real Oz and Willow were still floating in their tanks after thanking and dismissing the mind-controlled Warren Mears for his latest report on the theme park's activities. He also checked in on the still-frozen Andrew Wells robot which is just a back up plan. The boy won't be needed for the time being. There will not be any up dates along the way, but there was nothing new where that boy was concerned.
Once he arrived to where the tanks had recently been moved, Jareth frowned at the strange expressions on the captives' faces – Oz and Willow were still feeling the aftermath regarding their robotics counterparts sleeping together for the first time, thanks to the neural interfaces linking them that way.
Seriously, making love by android proxy like that? Jerry Springer would have had a field day with that sort of material on his TV show...
Elsewhere, once he had reassured himself that Buffy was safe in her upstairs bedroom at the saloon, Angel snuck around the town looking for any kind of trap. Against the odds, he found a magic ring that allowed vampires go out during the day, like the Gem of Amara (which, although Angel didn't know it, was still in the possession of Count Orlok -slash- Billy 'Ford' Fordham).
The rogue vampire who had snuck into Westworld much like Angel himself, he stayed out in the daylight after sunrise and didn't burn into ashes. So it didn't take much for Angel to put two and two together.
It didn't take long before Angel managed to ambush the vampire with the magic ring, dusting him and taking it for himself. Before the rogue vamp was staked, he'd confessed to Angel that the magic ring was made by a witch who had intended to sell to the undead at a fantastically high price, thanks to what had been learned from the Gem of Amara way back when.
The undead being cheapskates by nature, said vampire had not been happy about paying so much for his purchase. So the vamp had tricked the witch to come out of her house before he'd drained her dry, confiscated the magic ring and then he'd burnt down her house – just so no other vampires could get such a ring, or have the witch create one for them.
Now Angel had it on his finger, and he decided to take a stroll around the town. It was so strange seeing everything bathed in sunlight, including himself – of course, unlike the fabled Gem, all this ring did was protect him against the sun's lethal rays. It didn't do squat against the other methods of killing vampires – staking, decapitation, fire – so Angel knew he couldn't afford to get cocky, here.
Elsewhere, as the morning progressed, Glory continued to search the town for the Key, briefly cursing herself for not bringing some of the minions along. { I mean sure, Jinx, Dreg and Murk are utterly useless – but they would have been better than nothing! What was I thinking, wanting to get away from all of them? Oh, that's right, that they couldn't fit in among all the meat-bags and robots around here. UGH! }
Even if she couldn't find the Key for the time being, Glory had no intention of giving up her search. She also didn't care what all the humans (including the Scooby gang) did here in Westworld, as long as they stayed out of her way. { Those darn monks. I swear, they got off too easy after hiding my Key! Now, where to look next... }
She didn't know that the Willow-bot and Oz-bot were keeping a discreet eye on her, in between enjoying themselves after finally coming home. Likewise, she didn't know Buffy was feeling very left out and looking for something fun to do on her own.
As the day progressed, Angel played the role of an undead stalker, keeping out of sight as he followed Buffy around the town. The blonde Slayer got into a couple of fist fights, annoyed by some of the chauvinistic things the robot cowboys said to her, which were somewhat cathartic – still, as the Oz-bot had said recently, Buffy had definitely chosen the wrong theme park to vacation in if she wanted to avoid lots of people using lots of guns!
Deciding he'd waited long enough, Jareth gave orders for two vampire robots to be unleashed on Westworld later that night. Have the vamp-bots feed on some human-looking robots, just to make things interesting.
"Yes, sir. What do you want done with the Gunslinger, sir?" Warren asked, an eternally dull and glazed look in his eyes.
"The Gunslinger is going to be at the gun-shooting competition in the theme park's other town tomorrow," Jareth replied dismissively. "See to that as well, understood?"
"Yes, sir," Warren nodded mechanically and waked away.
Ethan then joined Jareth, "Ah, Jareth – all's going well? I heard there was something untowards with a couple of your captives, earlier today..."
"No need to worry, Ethan; the situation with Willow Rosenberg and Daniel Osbourne is under control," Jareth replied, even if he was still privately disquieted about all that. "Walk with me."
Ethan Rayne obliged, and the two discussed quite a number of things before Jareth left to check on his clone.
Plans were in play, so that the Scooby gang didn't cross paths again anytime soon...