Giles residence, Sunnydale during the summer of 1999
While Rupert was sound asleep on the couch with the TV on, both Willow and Oz appeared in their old family homes - like no time had passed at all, while they were replaced by Jareth's robot spies.
Still somewhat disoriented, Willow was nonetheless glad to be home. She didn't know exactly how much time she'd lost since the kidnapping, not to mention how she felt about Oz...
"Mom? Dad?" the redhead called out, looking around the Rosenberg residence. It felt weird seeing it again with her own eyes, rather than through her robotic doppelganger's – Willow could remember the arrival of the new couch in the lounge room, for example, and she knew just how comfortable it felt... despite never having sit on it before...
Willow abruptly noticed there was no reply from her parents, meaning she was all alone in the house. { Wow, major surprise there! } The young woman suddenly decided she was too tired to do anything like calling them and telling them what had happened (as if they'd ever actually believe her!) so she simply went upstairs to bed. She hoped her friends were alright...
Oddly enough, at that moment the same thought was running through Oz's mind as well. He wasn't sure what to do right now – he wasn't even sure he could call the people his robotic counterpart had fooled and manipulated 'friend'. { Nope, no time for an existential crisis now. }
He picked up the phone and called Buffy's Watcher, but the British man was still dead to the world and took no notice of the buzzing landline. So Oz gave up on that idea for the moment. { Yep, talking to Giles will have to wait. Question is, what am I going to do now? }
Glancing at the wall clock, he saw that it was roughly ten o'clock at night. { Bit late to go find Willow – assuming she even wants to talk to me, after experiencing everything those two machines got up to. } Shrugging, the guitarist went to make something to eat and then he sought out his bed for some well-earned sleep.
Westworld, the same time
The vamp-bots started feeding on 'normal' robots that were sleeping in their beds in the saloon first - before going after the Scooby gang, Faith and the Watcher. Target-rich environment and all...
At the cave hot springs, Glory was enjoying herself - but then she sensed someone appear in the shadows. { It's Death! How *dare* he disturb me? }
"Hello, Glory," Death Xander gave the hellgod a towel.
Glorificus frowned, she wasn't expecting to see Death here of all places. She didn't bother to thank him for the towel, just getting out of the hot springs and wrapping the towel around her body. "What do you want?"
Death Xander just smirked at her. "What does Death always want, Glory?"
Death Xander then smirked wider, as the clone that had ferried Ethan to his very unpleasant afterlife disappeared and reintegrated with him, giving him those memories. { A 10 for the jump but only 4 for the landing, indeed! }
Somewhere in Los Angeles, the same time
Count Orlok was in his hideout, trying to gain the powers from the Loc-Nar – same as he'd been trying to do for over a year, now.
But having had enough, the Loc-Nar used its powers to blow itself up - taking the former Billy Fordham out with it. A really stupid way to die, but some people just couldn't help but poke the bear, could they?
The whole hideout glowed with a green fountain of magical energy - which was powerful enough to activate a new Hellmouth in the City of Angels...
Much to Doyle's misery, the vision instantly exploded in his mind's eye – and the half-Irish Seer knew nothing would ever be the same in his city again.
A deserted island in the middle of nowhere, many hours earlier
Somehow, after leaving Sunnydale and buying what seemed to be the ideal getaway spot, the undead assassin named Aaron had become some kind of demigod after finding a strange, ancient orb hidden here.
But that came with its downsides - Gorr, the God Butcher, decided to pay him a visit on the island. The white hooded being appeared in front of Aaron and said, "Demigod, I have come to kill you! All gods will die!"
Gorr threw back his hood - he was all white and bald, wearing a white robe and holding the Necrosword. The blade was powerful enough to not just kill gods, but also other powerful beings. "Prepare to die!"
"I don't think so, God Butcher." Aaron drew out his own sword, and they struck at each other with their blades.
Too bad for him the undead assassin was no match for the God Butcher, and got his sword hand cut off. And much to his surprise, Aaron's healing powers failed to work. Yelling out in pain, the undead man went on to attack the God Butcher in blinding rage.
Gorr just grinned wickedly at him. He dodged Aaron's strikes easily, and hacked off the undead assassin's head - which killed him. Still grinning, Gorr left the now-deserted island to kill more gods and demigods across the multi-dimensional infinity of the universe...
Abandoned haunted house of Westworld, many hours later
There was a hidden lab under the haunted house that Angel was currently occupying – one which the native Jareth knew nothing about, but his future self from elsewhere in the multiverse did.
This Jareth wasn't a fool to trust a god – any god – in the first place. This Jareth hadn't made a clone of himself, but rather he'd turned his version of Xander Harris into a cyborg to fight the Slayer from his Earth. He'd even had Giles' brain put into the cyborg's head so that the Summers girl wouldn't dare to risk attacking the last living remnant of her beloved Watcher.
Future Jareth had built the hidden lab under the haunted house in this dimension years ago, and then he'd hidden himself away while his younger local self ran the theme parks so he wouldn't be found out. He'd also created his own Hakaider based on the Tokusatsu tv series called Android Kiaider, which didn't need blood from Giles' body to keep the brain in cyborg Xander's head from rotting.
Within the control room at DELOS, no one knew how the robots got back online in the haunted house. They just watched Angel fighting for his unlife on the monitors, thanks to the video transmissions by the robots. This was part of Future Jareth's plan to keep everyone at DELOS busy...
Curious historical sidebar, but the future Jareth from elsewhere in the multiverse had never acquired a theme park in his reality - he just had an evil organization that built killer robots. Some things are kinda inevitable, after all.
Angel kicked an attacking robot in the chest and it went flying into a wall! Before it blew up into pieces. { I hope Buffy isn't in any danger... } Too bad for him, Angel didn't know how wrong he was about that.
The Angel-bot broke into Buffy's room and went to attack the Slayer, who awoke and rolled out of bed. "I'm going to enjoy killing you, Buffy!" the Angel-bot laughed as he kicked her across the room.
Buffy was pretty much enraged, as you'd expect. "You're not Angel! You're just some a sshole robot with Angel's face!" She jump-kicked the robot in the chest, and much to its surprise, the Angel-bot went flying out the bedroom window with the loud sound of crashing glass.
Not far away, some of the vampire-bots thought they could kill Faith in her sleep. Which was stupid of them, as the Boston girl was a very light sleeper – and the entire place had already been woken up by Buffy and the Angel-bot's antics, anyway.
Cursing, Faith fired the gun she'd hidden under her pillow at them. "Damn asshole vampires attack a sleeping Slayer!" She blinded one of the vampire-bots with her shots, before her Watcher ordered her to make a strategic withdrawal and they got out of there.
It went without saying that Xander and Cordelia were attacked as well – but luckily, they woke up from their dreams (Xander's Blade Runner one, and Cordelia's one about her future wedding to her Doofus) just in time as Xander shot at the robotic attackers and they got out of there.
"This has GOT to be all your fault, Dumbass!" Cordelia yelled at her boyfriend as they fled downstairs.
"How do you figure that?" Xander asked in confusion.
"I don't know! Hey, don't try to spoil my rant with logic!" Cordelia yelled even louder.
Meanwhile, back at the hidden lab under the haunted house, Future Jareth appeared dressed like a very cheap dollar store version of Dr. Doom. His metal mask covered his burned face, courtesy of a fireball cast by Willow in his home dimension. Grimacing, Future Jareth had to admit his alternate self had had at least one good idea, as he'd never kidnapped and made robot doubles of Willow and Oz. He just had the cyborg Xander in a capsule within the hidden lab, waiting to be used.
Future Jareth walked over to the capsule controls and activated the cyborg Xander, a.k.a. Hakaider. Hakaider's human form, dressed in all black, opened his eyes!
TBC...