Sam looked around the room at the various people that were gathered in Mr. Black's living room the next morning. She had had half the night to lay awake and think about things, "Let me get this straight." She pointed at Cordelia who was back to looking completely human, "You're a human that can turn into cat girl and apparently turns back if she falls asleep."

Cordelia yawned, "Apparently." It wasn't her fault she had dozed off during Sam and Willow's science talk last night. She was just glad that it hadn't taken very long for her to figure out how to swap back and forth to her cat girl form at will. While it wasn't all that useful during the day on account of her not wanting people to think she was a freak, she had better night vision, hearing, agility and strength in her cat girl form not to mention some wicked sharp claws and a very adorable tail.

Sam pointed at Dawn, "And you're a human nymph crossbreed from the future?" She was actually having less issues with Dawn coming from the future or an alternate future than she was with everything else. She was just hoping that there wasn't another Samantha Carter in this world because she really didn't want to die a messy death. Then again, she was fairly sure that she wasn't on her world anymore because none of the phone numbers she remembered worked, not even for people that hadn't changed their number in decades.

Dawn said, "Yep, Mom was a slayer and my other parent was a nymph."

"How does that..."

Dawn shook her head, "I'd rather not know more details about my parents' sex lives than I already do. I'm happy to leave it at magic. I've seen the blood work so I know that I'm actually related to them. Beyond that..."

Buffy shivered and said, "Adults and sex..."

Sam sighed, "Right, moving on. The rest of you are magic users?"

Hermione said, "More or less yes."

"More or less?"

Willow said, "Not all of us have the same amount of magic though we can all use magic."

"You say I have magic but wouldn't I have noticed that?"

Harry said, "Maybe or maybe not. Coming to this world might have activated it or increased it or it might be that magic doesn't work in your old universe. If there wasn't anyone to teach you, it might have manifested as the occasional bout of luck."

Sam could probably come up with dozens of missions off the top of her head that had only succeeded because things had played out a certain way. While she couldn't honestly say that the success of all of their missions was only based on luck they had lived through some stuff that by all rights they shouldn't have. "I can think of a couple of times where we've been lucky to survive things that my team and I probably shouldn't have survived."

Xander said, "Being lucky is a good thing."

Cordelia said, "You're lucky?"

Xander said, "Considering how much we helped Buffy without dying, yeah I'd say we're all lucky."

Willow said, "We're probably lucky just making it to high school."

Cordelia frowned as she thought about the sheer number of missing students over the years. "True..."

Sam sighed, "Now what?"

Harry asked, "What do you mean?"

"I'm stuck in the body of a teenager and I don't have any identification or money."

Sirius said, "I know some people that should be able to help with identification."

Willow said, "As for money, you mentioned that you've worked with advanced computers before. We happen to have a couple of advanced magical computers from a version of 2027. They have blueprints and schematics for about thirty years worth of computers. I know how good the computers are, I have memories of designing them. As far as I know we're not stealing anything someone else would have created and we'll be using the money to help fight things that are trying to destroy the world or at least a decent chunk of it."

Sam wasn't really sure what to make of Willow's story but they had demonstrated a number of extraordinary abilities that could be classified as magic. She had seen memory devices that could implant memories so the idea of Willow having extra memories wasn't that outlandish and she seemed to have a working knowledge of the computer. She looked at Sirius, "How legal?"

He shrugged, "Technically they're part of the government."

"Technically?"

"My contact is part of the magical government which in the U.S. is part of the normal government." He wasn't going to admit that he was planning on bribing his contact with dinner or a large box of chocolate to speed things along.

"I'd have to look things over but I can probably help. If nothing else it would be nice to have access to a lab."

Dawn asked, "Do you have a robotics department?"

Willow said, "We can certainly work on building one if you've got the skills to make it work."

Dawn said, "I'm good with my hands, I helped grandpa out in the lab all the time before the aliens blew it up."

Willow winced, "Sorry."

"Yeah, I'm just hoping that we can stop them from destroying the human race this time."

Sam asked, "You didn't really explain what they were last night."

"We called them Skitters, they never said what they called themselves or if they did we couldn't understand them. It started when a large mutated looking space ship showed up in high orbit over China. They sent down around a thousand pods that crash landed all over China. Mutated creatures exited the pods and started setting up weird green and purplish energy fields that caused plants and animals to mutate. Then the creatures started building weird rock structures."

"What did the Chinese do?"

"They sent soldiers in at night to destroy one of the alien bases, sadly the Skitters are decently bullet resistant and they have an ability to cloak themselves which makes them almost impossible to see or detect with thermal gear. They can also see in the dark. As you can imagine it didn't go well for the soldiers. That led to the Chinese government bombing the infected sites."

Willow said, "That's terrible."

"It also didn't work, I mean it did for the sites that were hit but it just escalated the problem. The mother ship for lack of a better term destroyed every single satellite over China within an hour of the attack then proceeded to systematically vaporize every airport, car dealership, military base or large parking lot in China with energy weapons."

Sam winced, "I'm guessing your Earth didn't have a space fleet?"

"Nothing that could stand up against them. That was the beginning of the end really. After that they sent pods down to a bunch of locations the world over and the Skitters started setting up their bases and basically started expanding by hauling people and animals back to the energy fields and mutating them. Every time a country started 'winning' their military bases were vaporized from orbit. It wasn't long before mass panic set in. The worst part was that after a couple months of fighting the aliens unleashed a couple of airborne plagues which started killing off or driving large numbers of the population insane."

Willow looked at Dawn, "Plague?"

"Don't worry, I'm clean and the mech was sterilized before I went through the time portal."

Alex said, "It's fine, I already did a detection spell on her last night. She's clean." She had done one on Sam as well just to make sure that she hadn't brought anything with her.

Sirius frowned, "Did you ever figure out what they wanted?"

Dawn shrugged, "Resources, food, another planet... your guess is as good as mine. I left before the U.S. government enacted plan Pyrrhic Victory."

Sam frowned, "That doesn't sound like a good plan."

"Basically the plan was to launch every nuke the government had and destroy the Earth's ability to support any type of life."

Xander blinked in surprise, "That seems drastic."

"Humanity was more than a little crazy by that point."

Sam said, "How sure are you that they're coming here in this world?"

Dawn shrugged, "I'm not but I want to be ready for them if they show up."

Sirius said, "In that case we should probably start working on creating the Black Wind sooner rather than later."

Sam asked, "The Black Wind?"

"She's a magic spaceship that I built in my Halloween memories."

"You can do that?"

Sirius sighed, "In theory. I've got memories of building the shell but I don't have any of the notebooks or anything." He looked over at Hermione, "I've got my engineer to help me so we can probably figure something out."

Hermione said, "Even if we can't get the magical star drive to work, we should be able to get a ship into space using a modified broom enchantment."

Sam asked, "You have a magical FTL drive?"

Hermione shook her head, "No, I might know how to build one but I'm not sure it actually works. It's also sort of temperamental."

"Temperamental?"

"Basically it worked by scrying an area then teleporting there. You typically needed something to focus on like a star."

Sam asked, "You're telling me that it's basically jump drive?"

"If by that you mean a ship that basically makes teleport jumps if it needs to move faster than light, then yes."

"I'm looking forward to seeing the project completed."

Buffy said, "I've got a couple of ideas of what to make the hull out of."

Sirius asked, "Oh?"

"I discovered a couple of things while playing with alchemy that might help."

Harry said, "Excellent."

Jane said, "I can probably help with the alchemy side as well. I also want to create some defense golems for the mansion that can be called up if we run into trouble."

Sirius asked, "How dependable are they?"

"They range from useful to homicidal meat shields that you send at your enemies depending on how well you do enchanting them. That said, I can create them and test them before putting them in the ground to store them."

Alex said, "Don't take this the wrong way but can you wait until we've got a time field up before you make anything that can self replicate or that's larger than a breadbox?"

Sam scowled as she thought about the replicators, "Self replicating golems sound dangerous."

Jane said, "Yeah, I remember hearing stories about one idiot savant that created self replicating blood golems, it didn't end well. Thankfully the duplicates had a shelf life and the council was able to track down the original golem and destroy it. So no, I'm not planning on creating self replicating golems."

Sirius looked at Alex, "What are you and Harry working on?"

Alex looked at Harry, "I need to sort through some of the loot that we recovered to see how much of it is usable then I want to work on the vanishing cabinet and see if I can get it to connect to the one we left in Puck's world."

Puck asked, "Do you think that's even possible?"

"I'm hoping. Either way, we should be able to get there using the plane shifting ring."

Harry said, "If you want to work on that I'll sort through the magic items and books for a bit before I start repairing another car." He figured with everyone coming and going that having another car would be a good thing, especially as he didn't want to have to borrow Tara's car every time something came up.

"Sure."

Willow looked at Sam, "Let's set up another advanced computer and work on a plan for building the company."


Sirius looked up from the book he was reading when Sam, Dawn and an older looking ministry witch walked back into the lobby. "How did it go?"

The older looking witch frowned at Dawn, "Dawn just about gave our driving instructor a heart attack."

Dawn shrugged, "I don't know what he was complaining about, I had like four inches to spare and I used my turn signal."

Sirius asked, "Do we have to come back to retake the drive test?"

Dawn smirked, "Nah, everything I did was perfectly legal. If the other guy had just yielded like he was supposed it..."

The witch said, "I think she spent way too much time racing sports cars."

"At least I passed."

The older witch said, "Barely."

Sirius asked, "How did they do academically?"

"Dawn is off the charts in robotics and physics and managed to pass the rest of her subjects with various degrees of competency. Sam scored high on everything and got a perfect score on all of the science tests."

None of the rest of the science questions had been that hard though Sam suspected most people would have had issues answering everything correctly. "I like science."

"We're issuing them social security cards, a G.E.D.s and licenses based on their performance." She handed the girls their Driver's licenses and Sirius their paperwork.

Sam took her license and put it in her pocket. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." The older witch smiled as she walked off. It was always fun stealing magic users from other countries.

Sirius held up the keys to the sports car that Harry had restored the day before, "Who wants to drive?"

Sam snatched the keys, "Not Dawn."

Dawn pouted, "I'll have you know, I've never hit anyone that I wasn't aiming at."

"That's not as comforting as you seem to think it should be." Sam was just happy that it hadn't taken longer to get her identification.


The next week passed rather quickly as far as Harry was concerned. School was normal enough and the nightlife was walking quietly after the brutal thrashing an army of super powered children did to the local population of demons on Halloween. He figured it would take a couple of months before it bounced back completely. Other than Puck successfully using a copy of the plane jumping ring to visit with his parents and Beth in the perverted world, the weirdest thing had been an old friend of Buffy's showing up out of the blue with brain cancer. Buffy had healed him and sent him back home after hanging out for an evening. Sam had settled into the mansion and started working with Sirius and Tonks on her magic when she wasn't studying the advanced computers from 2027. Harry walked over and opened the library door when he heard someone pounding on it. "Hello?"

An unfamiliar middle aged man stumbled into the library, "Shut the door."

Harry stared at the zombie like creature that was walking up the path, "Who signed us up for the zombie apocalypse?" He raised his hand and lit the zombie on fire. The zombie turned into a puddle of burning slime before evaporating completely.

The man stared, "What the hell?"

Harry raised an eyebrow, "Really? You're being chased by a demon zombie and you're shocked that I lit it on fire?"

Giles walked up, "Good Lord, Phillip?

The middle aged man looked at Giles, "What is going on here?"

Giles said, "I should be asking you that, what happened?"

Philip looked at Harry, "You're training magic users again aren't you?"

Giles snorted, "You've got it backwards Phillip. He's been helping me dust off the old skills so that I can help keep my Slayer safe. What is going on?"

"Eyghon killed Diedre. Then this young man killed her zombie."

Giles scowled, "Hopefully there aren't any unconscious or dead people near here..."

Harry said, "We should be safe, it's been a slow week and it's after the last bell on a Friday. Besides, a saw the demon's essence vanish rather than jump to something else."

"I doubt he's actually dead but at least it's done with for now."

Giles said, "In that case I think I'll lock up and take my old 'fiend' for a drink."

Harry looked over at Buffy who was still working on it in her own little world behind the magic noise screens. "I'll go grab Buffy, she can practice with Alex back at the house."

Giles said, "Thank you."

"No worries." He figured he'd get the story out of Giles later. He walked over and shut off the music. "Let's go, Giles needs to have a drink with an old friend and we need to relax and have some fun for the weekend."

Buffy smiled, "What do you have in mind?"

"A time warp and some playing around with the decks to see if we can get anything good."

Buffy said, "I'm game."


Sam stared at the vase that was had been in pieces just a couple of seconds ago. "This is crazy." She looked around at the others in the room then back at the two glass rods on the table.

Harry said, "It's also great for experiments. Nothing like being able to repeat the experiment with the exact same materials."

"How long is the time window this time?"

Harry said, "Two hours."

Carter asked, "And no one else will remember the two hours other than us?"

Harry shrugged, "A couple of higher powers might notice though I doubt it considering we're not calling them or messing with a spell they're paying attention to."

"How much magic does it take?"

Harry said, "That depends on how far I want to extend the loop. I'd rather not push things more than a week or so."

Alex said, "At the most and only for important things."

Buffy asked, "What's the plan this time?"

Harry gestured to the end table where there were three decks of tarot cards and three printed off lists. "I'd like to test the cards and see what effects they have. We know what we're hoping happens but we don't know what will actually happen."

Buffy walked over and picked up the set of vellum cards, "Shall we test out the deck of destinies first?"

Willow grinned as she walked over and grabbed the list and a pen. "I'm ready."

"Be right back." Harry grabbed the green rod and teleported down to the more heavily warded safe and locked it away after casting a ward that would alert him if it was damaged in any way. He teleported back to his spot on the couch.

Sam jumped slightly when he returned, "I'm still not used to that."

Hermione said, "You'll get used to it after a while."

Jane laughed, "Only to a point."

Xander said, "Draw your first card."

Willow said, "There shouldn't be a limit on the number of cards you draw unlike the Deck of Many Things."

Buffy drew the top card and instantly started growing larger. It didn't take long before Buffy's clothes ripped and she found herself naked much to the appreciation of several people around the room including Xander. The card dissolved as she finished growing, "At least I'm not short anymore."

Xander stared at Buffy's massive breasts that were on display, "Must resist the urge to say it..."

Harry snickered, "Right there with you."

Buffy mock glared at Xander, "Buffy smash."

Sam stared at Buffy, "I'm guessing she's about eight and a half feet tall."

Willow asked, "Let me guess a Giant Crab?"

Buffy looked over at Willow, "Yes."

"That means it's fairly close to the 60% the card said you should grow. Do you feel stronger?"

Buffy shrugged, "I'm not sure, I'd have to play with a weight room to check."

Willow marked a one next to the Giant crab card, "You should draw the next card."

Buffy drew the next card, "A skull?" She winced as her head felt weird all of a sudden as the card dissolved. "What was that?"

Sam frowned as she noticed Buffy's forehead expand, "Are you okay?"

"Just a momentary discomfort but I feel fine."

Willow said, "The skull card is supposed to boost a person's intelligence."

Buffy smiled, "That could be nice to have though not if it makes me look like a complete freak."

Harry figured they could solve some of the problems by swapping their consciousness into a copy of their original body. "What's next?"

Buffy sighed, "Probably something bad." She pulled the card and looked at it a second before it dissolved, "I don't feel any different."

Willow asked, "What did it look like?"

"A sea?"

"With a trident or without?"

"No trident."

Willow shrugged, "Then it's probably the sea card, it spells disaster at sea, bad luck."

Buffy shrugged, "Luckily I don't go on boats much."

Sam asked, "How dangerous is the deck?"

Willow said, "There is only one card that I'm really worried about."

Buffy grabbed another card.

Xander watched amazed as Buffy grew large black wings out of her back, "She's like an angel."

Alex laughed, "I bet she can fight with those."

Sam said, "The wings would need to be larger..." She noticed several people looking at her with smiles, "Of course magic might make it possible..." She really wanted a lab with the proper equipment so she could find something that explained how magic worked. Conjuring stuff from nothing should be massively energy intensive. She was willing to admit that a lot of the stuff her new friends could do was magic but that didn't mean she was willing to just wave her hands and give up trying to investigate things.

Willow asked, "Crow?"

Buffy said, "Yes."

"Cool, so far they're lining up nicely."

Buffy draw another card, "It's a trident."

Willow said, "That should give you the ability to breathe underwater and swim really fast."

Xander laughed, "We could totally sell that card to the swim team."

Sam shook her head, "That would be cheating and probably get everyone looked at for steroids. It would also be a great ability to have though if it doesn't have any negative side effects."

Willow said, "It says she can charm natural marine creatures as well."

Xander grinned, "Sign me up."

"I think everyone would benefit."

Buffy frowned as she looked at Sam, "Why do I suddenly feel like a lab rat?"

Harry said, "It's all in the name of science."

Sirius said, "Perhaps we should test some things out before she draws the rest of the cards."

Buffy said, "I'm game. I want to see if I can fly."


An hour and some later and Harry was rather shocked to realize that the cards were in the exact same order this time around as they were the first time around. They had even reset things twice more just to make sure. He guessed that he shouldn't be surprised but he had expected the magic of the deck to shuffle them like the Deck of Many things. That Deck was never the same, even the first draw wasn't the same which by all rights it should be. "That's handy."

Xander laughed, "I feel like there should be boss music on or Ride of the Valkyries or something to signify that we've just broken the world."

Willow said, "It's not that bad."

Hermione said, "I'm not sure. He's got a point. We've got a fair number of copies of the Destinies Deck. If we know the order of the cards we can figure out when to let someone else pull a card and when to grab the cards for ourselves. If we shuffle the cards once we're out of the time loop then we'll have cards in different orders which means we can probably get rid of some of the bad cards and then copy the improved decks in the orders we want."

Willow said, "One of the cards is the Hand of Youth, it increases your lifespan by a ten sided dice times one hundred. A hundred to a thousand years with a card pull. If that's genetic..."

Sam said, "Then you're looking at an extremely long lived race after a couple of generations use the cards. Even without being able to benefit from the cards more than once you're still looking at drastic increase in longevity from just one card."

Sirius asked, "How many other beneficial cards are there?"

Willow looked down the list, "The Black Sword increases someone's level by one, I'm not sure what that would do in reality. The Djinni card gives people a wish. The Hammer card makes people hit harder in unarmed combat by a decent amount. The ice sword card, let's you cast an ice effect once a day. The only other slightly beneficial card is the ogre card, it increases strength at the cost of intelligence."

Sam said, "That doesn't sound good."

"We might be able to offset the downsides by transferring our minds out of our body with a spell, having someone use the card then transferring back."

Sam said, "That seems rather ghoulish to me."

Harry said, "I agree. Besides, the magical strength boost that we get from the orbs and the ritual means that the small increase we get from the ogre card isn't really worth it."

Tonks said, "I'd like to test the Skull card the next time around while in an alternate shape then relax and see if I return to normal and keep the upgraded mind."

Sam said, "Experiments are good. What about the other bad cards?"

Willow looked at the list, "The Withered Hand ages you almost to death, the vampire card drains a person of two levels, the gauntlet card makes fungus grow on your arm and you can make one foot diameter mushroom circles grow in ten minutes. I'm not sure there is a good use for that."

Puck said, "Actually there might be if you can turn that ability into an item and twist the item to grow normal plants in ten minutes."

Alex said, "You've got a good point."

Sam looked at Buffy who was once again over eight feet tall thanks to the Giant Crab card, "What exactly are the game stats on the Crab card?"

Willow said, "A 60% size increase, +4 strength, +4 constitution and -4 to dexterity, the dexterity returns at a point a month as you get used to the change."

"Is there magic to get smaller that doesn't decrease strength?"

Willow said, "In the game? Sure, in reality? Heck if I know."

Sirius said, "It's something to look into. At the very least it might be something to use on Dobby if he wants to be larger."

Harry laughed, "Elf power."

Luna asked, "Of the useful cards, the wings are too noticeable. The wish might be cursed or it might not be."

Puck said, "Which means that our real out and out winner is the Trident card as it offers us the ability to breath underwater."

Tonks said, "Followed by the Skull card if we can control the changes and if it actually works."

Buffy said, "I don't know the hammer card sounds useful as well but I'll admit being able to breathe under water is awesome." Sticking her head underwater and inhaling had been rather painful as water had rushed in and went places it shouldn't. Thankfully she had figured out that if she breathed through her nose she got pure clean air rather than water which was totally neat as it meant that she could stay underwater as long as she wanted.

Sirius said, "That still leaves what we do with the cursed cards."

Xander asked, "Larry?"

Willow mock glared at Xander, "That's not nice."

"Snyder?"

Buffy said, "Don't tempt me."

Harry said, "We can just but them on whoever then send the cards out of the loop."

Willow said, "In that case, can we give Snyder the magma card?"

Buffy laughed, "That's the one that sends them into a hot pit of magma right?"

"Yep."

Sam sighed, "The magma level is... if we're going to use the card on someone can we set up sensors?"

Xander stared at Sam, "What?"

"If it doesn't matter anyways because we're going to be resetting things I'd like to know how far down the card actually takes them."

Sirius looked at Sam, "Aren't you supposed be a bit more responsible as a general?"

Sam shrugged, "I'm a scientist and you're experimenting with time loops. I might as well collect what information I can."

Alex said, "We'll stop by the electronics store."

Harry looked over at the Deck of Many things, "What do we want to do about the Deck of Many annoyances?" It would have been a lot easier if the damned thing was actually consistent.

Willow looked at Buffy, "I think we should reset things then let someone draw five cards. If we get really, really lucky and it's five good cards then we break the loop. If not we let everyone other than Harry draw cards and we send back any magic items we acquire before resetting the loop and trying again."

Harry asked, "Why can't I draw cards?"

"Because you did the time loop spell, the cards would probably count the glass rods as possessions which would probably do something horrible. Technically Sirius and Hermione probably shouldn't either as Hermione owns her Library and Sirius owns the house that we're in which also contains the glass rods."

Xander said, "This should be fun. What do we wish for if we get wishes?"

Willow said, "Items that we can send back are probably best. Upgraded computers, games, lightsabers, video game systems or jewelry if you must. Magical items are a possibility. Actually, I've got a sheet on suggested wishes." She walked over and grabbed the wish guide that she had pieced together and printed off. She walked back over and handed it to Xander. "Some of those won't apply because we're going to be resetting things but some of the item choices should work."

Xander looked over the guide, "You put a great deal of effort into this."

Willow said, "I had a week to plan this."

Harry reached into his pocket and broke the red glass rod.

Buffy blinked as she suddenly found herself back to normal. "Okay, that was a weird."

Harry reached out and pocketed the green rod, "Okay, who wants to start?"

Xander asked, "Which is the Deck of Many things?"

Willow said, "The normal Deck of Many Things is on the left, the Deck of Many Things, Harrow is on the right. It's a Pathfinder deck and has some interesting abilities or at least it's supposed to."

Xander picked up the Harrow deck, "I already know most of what the Deck of Many things does. I might as well try this. Is there a maximum number of cards I can draw?"

"Technically no but you can't draw more cards than you say unless you draw certain cards."

Xander smirked, "In that case, ten."

Willow winced, "That's insane..."

Xander drew his first card and grew breasts and lost something between his legs. "The Twin..."

Willow laughed, "That's not nearly as bad as it could be."

Xander drew his next card, "The snakebite? I don't feel any different."

Willow glanced down at her list of cards, "Don't touch anyone, you're toxic."

"Could be worse." Xander picked another card. "Mountain man..." He sighed as his already abused shirt ripped as Xander grew larger.

Buffy laughed, "Payback is a bitch."

Alex snickered, "She's rather cute like this."

Xander stuck his tongue out then drew another card, "The bear?" He suddenly changed into a beast of a half bear half human girl for a couple of seconds before changing back into his more human if still large appearance.

Harry drew his wand and cast a shield between Xander and the rest of the people. "Are you still you?"

Xander frowned, "Apparently, that was weird."

Sirius said, "That could be useful..."

Xander said, "We'll see." He drew another card. "The Joke... crap, I have a feeling I have to pick someone."

Willow said, "Pick me."

"Willow."

Three cards floated off the top of the deck and hovered in the air. The first was The Juggler, the second was the Midwife, the last was The Owl.

Willow looked the cards over for a second then picked the Juggler. She swapped her enhanced strength for her dexterity. She was hoping that the two points the card was supposed to add to each stat helped. Mostly though she was hoping that she could do the ritual to boost strength again now that the first ritual wasn't targeting her strength. Then again she'd want to do some testing to see if her agility was boosted before let Harry break the time loop, "You've got to pick one of the remaining cards."

Xander picked the owl. "Huh, okay, that's useful and not." The cards went back into the deck and it shuffled itself.

Sam asked, "What does it do?"

"It lets me scry on someone no matter where they are for a minute."

Willow said, "The downside is that they know they're being scryed on."

Xander said, "Let's try this again." He drew a card, "The unicorn."

Willow said, "He can take back an action and fate reweaves things, be careful with that."

Xander pulled the Twin card again and swapped back to a male.

Harry raised his wand and conjured Xander a pair of shorts, "That's better."

Alex said, "Spoilsport."

Jane said, "It's probably for the best, it would have hurt going in."

Xander blushed, "Moving on..." He drew another card, "The Paladin." He held up the long sword that appeared in his free hand.

Willow stared at the blade in surprise, "I'm fairly sure that's an enhanced holy avenger."

Harry asked, "Enhanced?"

"Don't do this as it's one use only but he can stab the ground with the sword and turn the sword into a paladin that will help him fight for thirty minutes. It burns most of the magic out the sword though."

Harry said, "Okay, that sounds like something we should seriously consider sending outside of time."

Buffy looked at the beautiful sword, "Will it work for anyone or just him?"

Harry said, "The ability to summon a paladin will work for anyone, the special abilities of a Holy Avenger only work for a paladin."

Alex said, "It's still a very nice blade and being able to summon help is a good thing."

Xander said, "I'm fine with you sending it out of the time loop."

Sam asked, "How does that work anyways?"

Harry said, "Basically we use another magical item to send someone back to before the loop started then when the loop resets they're duplicated."

Sam looked around, "You've duplicated yourself before?"

Harry shook his head, "Nah, we've been duplicating our house elf."

Willow said, "Let's take a break, we've got some time before we reset things." She jumped for the back of the couch and tumbled as she missed.

Xander blinked, "Are you okay?"

Tonks said, "That made me look graceful and that takes some work."

Willow grumbled as she picked herself up off the floor, "I'm testing something." She made another jump for the back of the couch and screwed it up enough that she hit her head on the ceiling and came down in a tumble. Thankfully her durability meant that she wasn't hurt. "Okay, that sucks. Apparently the cards swapped my base attributes and not my magically enhanced strength which means that my dexterity sucks. So we're going to have to reset this loop."

Xander said, "Unless I use my take back card and swap picking you with picking Tonks. I'm fairly sure that she's stronger than she is dexterous."

"Or at least close enough that the bonus attribute points should help her more than they help me."

Tonks said, "We could try it."

Xander said, "Let's press on, if I have to use my swap fate ability to send the sword back I will."

Willow said, "Okay."

Xander pulled his next card, "The Empty Throne."

Willow said, "Gain a title and get a fair amount of gold. It could be worse."

"Cool."

Buffy said, "Unless it kills someone and Xander gets the title that way."

"Less cool."

Xander drew his next to last card. "It's a desert."

Willow said, "The Desert, it's a one time teleport ability that breaks all sort of wards for you and your allies."

"Cool. One last card." Xander drew one more card. "The Carnival."

Willow cursed, "Shit."

Nine cards flew out of the deck and hovered in the air, the names could be made out as the cards hovered. Xander said, "The Inquisitor, The Sickness, The Bear, The Liar, The Big Sky, The Crows, The Locksmith, The Cricket, The Empty Throne." As he said the last name the cards shuffled themselves together then one card flipped over out of the nine. "The Locksmith."

Willow sided in relief. "Opens one lock or portal."

Buffy said, "We're going to have to reset things, unless we can figure out how to reduce Xander's size."

Alex said, "I don't know, I'm sort of looking forward to spending some quality time with..."

Ginny covered up Alex's mouth, "Too much information honey."

Xander said, "The title would have been fun but I'm large, a werewolf and I poison anyone I touch. How long do we have before the reset?"

Harry looked at his watch, "An hour and twenty or so."

"Anyone want to see if they can walk me through the ritual to empower a magic item with my lycanthropy powers."

Sirius asked, "Why would you actually want that?"

Willow said, "Because true were creatures aren't cursed and they're rather hard to damage or at least that's how it works in Dungeons & Dragons and that's where the powers came from."

Harry said, "I'll do it."

Alex said, "In that case, I'm going to use the destines deck and see if I can get something useful out of the fungus ability before we reset things."

Buffy looked at Xander's sword, "Just as long as you send the sword back with Kreacher when you send the other items."

Harry laughed, "We can get you a better weapon, heck we can get you the ability to conjure a sword at will."

"But that one is shiny."

Alex said, "We're wasting time, let's do this."

Harry grabbed his supplies and started showing Xander how to create an item on the off chance that something useful came out of things.

Dawn spoke up, "I've got an idea."

Willow looked over at Dawn, "What?"

"If you're sending things back in time to be duplicated, can you duplicate an extra luck potion for me. I figure drinking a luck potion would be a good idea before using the cards."

"I'm not sure a luck potion would help."

"Does it say they don't?"

"Not specifically it just says that divination magic doesn't work."

Dawn said, "We might as well try then."

Harry said, "I'll put it on the list."


Dawn smirked as she drank a dose of the luck potion once Harry got back after hiding the green rod again. She was feeling pretty good about the deck, "Twenty cards."

Willow coughed, "Oh hell."

Xander said, "You're insane."

Dawn laughed as she drew her first card, "The Dance."

Willow said, "Light on your feet and a better chance to win initiative, whatever that does in real life."

"Cool." Dawn drew her next card. "The Keep. What's that do?"

Willow looked at the paper to be sure, "You apparently get your own demiplane."

"Wicked." Dawn drew another card, "The winged Serpent. Hey, I get a wish."

Jane said, "Just wait for the bad crap."

Dawn drew another card, "The Cricket, oh I can draw more cards and I get a speed boost for it but only up to three. Yep, three."

Xander winced, "This is going to end badly."

Dawn drew the Forge, "Reforge something, my dagger, no way am I messing with my armor." She smirked as her dagger changed into a silver fork. "That could have been worse." She drew her next card. She laughed as she drew the Joke card. "Xander."

Xander sighed, "Curses."

Willow named the three cards floated up into the air, "The Teamster, accept a quest and get loot on completion, The crows which is basically choosing between your most valuable ally and your most valuable possession and having one of them destroyed utterly and The Cricket which is drawing more cards for more speed."

Xander looked at Dawn then at the floating cards, "The Teamster." He'd rather go on a quest than make Dawn. He was fairly sure that he wouldn't have to actually go on a quest but the reward at the end appealed to him.

Dawn smirked as she took the Cricket card, "Three." She drew her three cards, "Liar, Trumpet and the Hidden truth card."

Willow said, "Something of yours, most likely your most valuable item gets cursed, you get the ability to once a day summon an outsider, I'm not sure how that will work out and you get the ability to get a true and correct answer to one question or puzzle, any one question or puzzle. I'm a little jealous."

"I'm a bit annoyed that my mech is probably cursed but we'll see how things work out." She drew another card. "The Brass Dwarf, oh let's see energy types, I get to be immune to one type and I pick up a vulnerability to another. "I should probably say electricity, I'm always zapping myself."

Willow winced, "We'll have to do some testing later."

Dawn picked her next card, "The Survivor."

Willow said, "You might get saved from death but I wouldn't count on it."

Sirius said, "At least it's useful."

Harry laughed, "Only fourteen more cards to go."

Dawn pulled her next card, "The locksmith, open any lock, that could be fun." She pulled her next card, "The Wanderer. No idea."

Willow said, "The chart says that something of yours will become magic."

Dawn said, "Neat." She drew another card. "The Empty Throne. That was the title right?"

"Yep."

"Cool." She drew another card, "The owl, scrying on someone. Half down."

Xander frowned, "I have a feeling that her luck potion helps."

"No jinxing people." Dawn drew her next card. "The Juggler." She swapped her dexterity and constitution. She wasn't sure had bad a trade that was but figured the she got the best feeling when she thought about what stats to trade. She drew the next card. "The Foreign Trader." The card vanished and left behind a Hidden Truth card.

Willow frowned, "That shouldn't have happened."

Dawn asked, "What do you mean?"

"That should only happen if you're immortal."

Dawn shrugged, "I'm like half nymph. I'm sure it has something to do with that." She drew another card, "The Empty Throne. Great, it's like the world is trying to tell me something."

Willow said, "Well you did decide to grab an ungodly number of cards."

"True." Dawn drew her next card, "The Rabbit Prince?"

Willow looked at her list, "You automatically critical things if you threaten a critical strike but things automatically confirm a critical strike on you in return, I've no idea what exactly that will do in real life."

Dawn said, "I guess that just means I need some armor now." She flipped the next card. "The Vision... shit."

Dawn looked around as she found herself looking out over a landscape that looked to be all sorts of twisted and corrupted. "What the hell?"

Egwene al'Vere smiled grimly, "Close enough. We're not going to make it to the battle unless we hurry."

"Then let's hurry." Dawn wasn't sure why she said that but it seemed right.

Egwene smiled as she stood on her toes and kissed Dawn on the cheek. She turned and looked over her shoulder and shouted, "Let loose the dogs of war!"

Dawn managed to half turn her head to try to look at her army before everything faded and she found herself on a rickety tower with a crazy looking blond coming toward her. "This sucks."

Glory smirked, "I'm going home, sure everything and everyone here will die but I'm going home."

Xander stepped onto the plank behind Glory carrying a rather large hammer, "Over my dead body."

"That can be arranged."

The vision faded and Dawn found herself back in the living room, "That officially sucked."

Willow said, "The vision card, one true, one false or at least that's what is supposed to happen."

Dawn sighed as she reached for the deck and flipped another card, "The Uprising." She looked over at Willow.

"You get some accident prone followers and negative rep if they die or at least that's what you'd get in the game."

Buffy snorted, "And this being the hellmouth, I can't see them lasting long."

Dawn sighed, "Great." She drew another card, "The Trumpet."

Xander frowned, "I feel a little cheated here."

"That's just because I'm just that badass." She drew another card and laughed as it came up the Joke again. "Sirius this time."

Sirius sighed, "Gee thanks."

Willow read the cards as the deck dealt out three cards, "The Fiend, The Courtesan and The Twin. A powerful evil takes notice and sets out to kill you, The Courtesan causes one of your favorite items to become intelligent and The Twin causes you to flip genders."

Sirius reached out and took the Courtesan card, "Sorry."

Dawn scowled as she reached out and took the Twin card and swapped to a rather attractive male. "I sort of hate you right now."

"You'll get over it."

Alex said, "I'm fairly sure there was a gender changing girdle in the loot piles somewhere."

"Let's hope so." Dawn grumbled as she flipped over her second to last card, "The Brass Dwarf again... I picked electricity last time, let's go for acid this time."

Xander said, "Just one more card."

Dawn reached out and drew the last card, "Unicorn."

Willow stared at the card, "That shouldn't be possible... no way no how..."

Xander said, "I'm guessing the potion of luck helped."

Harry said, "Okay, we're breaking the loop, that was way too profitable not to."

Xander said, "Agreed."

Sam asked, "Can I see the list of possibilities, I want to crunch some numbers."

Willow handed her the list, "Go for it. I'm pretty sure that luck smiled on her."

Harry pulled out the green rod and broke it, "And we're out of the loop."

A half naked girl with cute demon horns poking out of her long black hair smirked as she said, "Excellent!"

Xander turned to look and noticed the unfamiliar speaker was wearing sheer black panties and nothing else, "Crap... that means I have to actually go on a quest, doesn't it?"

Harry gulped as he stared at how much magic was rolling off the demon girl.

She grinned at Xander, "If I said no would you believe me?"

He lied, "Yep."

She laughed, "Exactly."

Buffy looked at the demon girl, "Do you honestly expect to be able walk in here and give one of my friends a quest?"

"Yep." She popped her p.

Harry said, "Buffy... let it go."

Buffy said, "But..."

Alex said, "We're not going to win here."

The demon girl smirked as she looked Alex over, "Oh I don't know, I think we'd both win..." She shook her head, "Hey, no fair distracting me." She looked back at Xander, "I need you to buy a demon for me at an underworld auction."

Dawn asked, "Why would you need us to buy a demon?"

"Because I'm not allowed to go there, mortal champions only you understand. I can totally get you tickets."

Xander asked, "How much is the demon?"

"I'm not sure, it's an auction." She smirked as she conjured a tag with a number on it and a pair of tickets and handed them to Xander, "Just so we're clear, I'll rip out your soul and eat your insides if you screw this up. Have fun and don't worry the tickets will take you and a friend where you need to go." She giggled as she vanished.

Xander looked at Dawn, "Just what I needed..."

Willow said, "On the upside, if you complete the mission you'll get a lavish reward."

"Which I can't spend if I'm dead."

Dawn winced, "Sorry?"

Xander sighed, "I was going to say it isn't your fault but it sort of is. Hopefully it will be okay."

Buffy said, "If it makes you feel better I'll come with you."

Xander said, "I'm not sure that taking a slayer to an underworld auction is such a great idea."

Harry said, "I'll go."

Xander nodded, "Thanks."

Alex asked, "How long until the auction?"

Xander looked down at the tickets, "If I'm reading this right then three hours."

Alex said, "In that case, let's see what we can find for protective gear in the storeroom." She looked at Dawn, "We should probably find that girdle so that we can turn you back into a girl."

Dawn said, "That would be fantastic."