"Well, crap," Xander Harris morosely commented.
It had to happen at last, an apocalypse they couldn't stop. Judging from how fast that image of a Great Old One's inhuman countenance stretching across the entire Pacific Ocean horizon ahead of their ship's prow was shifting from intangibility into brain-dissolving solidness, the eldritch abomination known as Cthulhu was going to materialize in front of the Scooby Gang any moment now.
After that, humanity's existence would probably be measured in mere minutes before a malevolent cosmic entity then nonchalantly eradicated every bit of life down to the last bacterium throughout the whole world.
This really pissed Xander off, naturally. All the trouble they'd gone through lately, with the New Council's Slayers and Watchers running themselves ragged taking out ol' Cthulie's minions at local demonic hot spots while the main core of original Scoobies chartered a small ship and headed for a certain remote Pacific island to disrupt their enemy's appearance, and it'd gone to hell before Xander and his friends could even arrive in time.
Xander glanced around at the small group of people gathered together at the front of the boat. The captain and his crew were all below, probably getting dead drunk as fast as possible. That was smart, since just a single glance done by them at the tentacled monstrosity a dozen miles away would instantly render insane virtually any normal person. As for the Scoobies…
The man with an eyepatch shrugged. All of them here had a variety of good reasons for not starting to foam at the mouth and claw off their faces with their fingernails, such as being born and growing up on a Hellmouth, protected by prior demonic encounters, or possessing sufficient magic to shield themselves. Xander, however, had a much more simpler explanation: He and his family in blood were already completely nuts.
If he was going to die right this minute, though, might as well as kick the bucket with your crazy friends. Let's see…
Giles was calmly polishing his glasses and regarding with scholarly interest how Cthulhu was changing into something which could directly interact with this reality.
Buffy and Faith were doing a near-continuous game of rock-paper-scissors over who'd be the Slayer to give a final hopeless but still defiant whack against Cthulhu with the Scythe Buffy had tucked under her left arm.
Dawn was lying down in her bikini and sunglasses onto a chaise lounge dragged up to the prow, enjoying the sunny day while sipping at a slushy pina colada she'd mixed at the ship's bar. Full marks for sheer style there, Xander had to admit.
Finally, the last of their small company was intently staring at what she was gripping in her hand. Following Willow's gaze, Xander couldn't see what was so interesting about a half-empty plastic bottle of Fiji Water the witch had been in the middle of drinking just before Cthulhu showed up.
Just as incomprehensible was the fierce grin Willow abruptly developed, when she next gulped down every remaining drop in the water bottle. With a full baseball pitcher's wind-up of her arm which Xander had taught her in Sunnydale so many years ago, Willow then hurled the empty bottle over the ship's side into the ocean below.
The witch then happily announced to all of the others whose attention had been attracted by this odd act of littering, "Guys, I've got a plan!"
"Is it gonna be a quick one?" Xander asked, observing how Big-C was now almost solid.
Making mystical gestures all the while, Willow nodded as her red hair began to glow pure white. "Quick, you bet! It'll even be good for the environment afterwards, my Rite of Summoning Similarity!"
After those words, Willow did a final thrust of both extended fingers towards the loathsome being who'd just arrived from another dimensional plane. Massive bolts of magical energy burst from the witch's fingertips, shooting towards Cthulhu while the rest of the Scoobies watched in their new hope. Except…
Rather than striking the Dark God itself, Willow's spell transformed the stretch of ocean just in front of their unholy opponent into something that the group at the ship's prow had only an instant to stare at before Cthulhu reacted. Not at what a minor speck of what insignificant species inhabited for now this world had used her powers to gather from all over, but instead to celebrate its arrival.
Just as a normal human walking outdoors after a full day inside would take a good, deep breath to enjoy the fresh air, Cthulhu now unhinged its jaws and inhaled a few hundred thousand gallons of sea water.
Along with uncounted tons of humanity's floating plastic litter which oceanic researchers had decades ago dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Normally dispersed throughout the entire ocean, this plastic debris ranged from large objects, medium and small items like drifting drink bottles whose former contents had been previously consumed plus various pieces down to the size of confetti and finishing off in the main mostly suspended plastic fragments of a microscopic nature. However, even for the latter, there was so much of this stuff that when Willow's magic spell throughout the entire Pacific Ocean scooped up and transported every speck of plastic litter in front of Cthulhu's mouth, that monster swallowed enough in one go to completely block its throat and extend far deeper down into its enormous carcass.
Cthulhu didn't like at all the new sensation it was feeling, one that this creature from beyond the stars had never undergone before in its immortal existence. Grabbing at its neck, Cthulhu's multiple eyes bulged in agony and its jaws worked unavailingly to get rid of what was so densely packed in there.
Beginning to send twenty-foot waves in every direction due to Cthulhu's tremendous body flailing away at the ocean in its growing suffocation, the Great Old One soon had only one desperate thought for survival: Escape! Maybe if it left this horrible place and returned to the immaterial realm and stayed there for another aeon, whatever was strangling it would disappear!
Acting at once, Cthulhu vanished from sight. Where there'd been a looming mountain of a combined octopus, man, and dragon, nothing remained but open water. There wasn't even a single floating plastic bottle bobbing around.
Whooping in unison with joy at how Willow had just saved the world and helped clean up the planet at the same time, the other Scoobies gathered around the witch and engaged in a round of mutual relieved hugs.
From where she'd swiftly claimed Xander and put his arms around her nubile bare waist, Dawn lifted her pina colada in salute to a beaming redhead. "Hey, Wils, you know the really good part of today?"
"What?" chorused both the Wiccan and her friends, knowing something was coming but going along anyway with the set-up to Dawn's punchline.
"No matter where it might go, nobody's going to give Cthulhu the Heimlich maneuver!"