DISCLAIMER: All things Buffy are the creation and property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, and so forth. All things non-Buffy are the creation and property of many other individuals and corporate entities.

This particular story is the creation of Robert A. Black (that's me). Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think of my work. Good or bad, I'd like to hear it.

TIME CONTEXT: This story takes place between the Buffy episodes, "Nightmares" and "Invisible Girl."

Confused? Refer to the Readers' Guide at the end of the chapter for hints and explanations.

"Xander, this feels just like when we used to choose sides for kickball."

"Oh, come on, Will, it's not the same at all. For one thing, I'll bet that Garak guy can't kick worth a darn."

Willow tried to laugh, but the sound stuck in her throat. She was trying not to let fear get the better of her, but this was about as dangerous a situation as she had ever faced. Worse than venturing into the basement when the nightmare world overran the town. Worse than venturing into the Bronze on the night of the Harvest. Even worse than doing that scene in the school talent show.

The paramedics had finally arrived to pick up Joxer, Rembrandt and Maggie. Joe, Mulder and Scully told them they were in charge, but Willow and Xander, as the only Sunnydale residents around, had to do a lot of the talking. Next, Kes had taken Scully, Quinn and Wade back to the library, where they could help with the research and still check in with the hospital from time to time.

The remaining people were dividing into two groups so they could look for Buffy, the vampires, and that big guy who shot poison gas out of his chest. Again, since Willow and Xander were the only locals, they would be leading the groups around town.

Fortunately, choosing sides was not as difficult as it had been in the old kickball days. Willow would take Mulder, Marcus, Bashir, Gabrielle and Leela with her, while Xander would take Ace, Kimberly, Harry, Garak and Riker with him.

Willow looked over her charges and wanted to pass out. She was supposed to lead them? She reminded herself that she was only the guide, and that she had already been told to get behind everyone else if fighting broke out, but that didn't help. What was she supposed to do when these people looked to her for guidance, asked her opinion on where they should go, and trusted her judgment in a life-or-death situation? That was the scariest thing about the entire night. Willow almost wished she could face the vampires instead.

Leela sensed Willow's anxiety. "Come along, sister!" she said encouragingly. "We will find these demons again. Then we will fight for the honor of your tribe, and the great horned swine beast you serve."

"Yeah, sure," said Willow. There was no doubt about it - the vampires looked more appealing all the time.

She watched as Xander led his group out the Bronze's back door. He remained as brave has he had been during the fight, but now he was making a bigger show of it. Probably to impress that Kimberly girl, Willow thought. She never liked watching Xander go through his many infatuations, so she quickly turned away and prepared to assemble her own team. As she did, her foot crunched on something in the debris left over from the fight.

Willow looked down and spied something pink half-buried by broken pieces of furniture. She shoved the debris aside and picked the object up. It looked like a wristwatch, but Willow couldn't find any hands or numbers on it. She wondered how anyone was supposed to tell time with the thing.

Obviously, someone had dropped the watch, or whatever it was, during the fight. Since Willow had never seen a watch like this one before, she guessed it came from one of their visitors - but there was no way to tell which of them was its owner.

There was no time for her to investigate at the moment, anyway, and most of the visitors had already gone. She shoved the watch into her pocket and prepared to lead her group into the night. There would be plenty of time later to unravel this small mystery.

***

Kes had experienced many adventures during the three years of her life, but this one was remarkable in many ways - not the least of which was the rapid pace at which things were happening.

She had barely even had time to take a good look at the planet Earth. Barring another unforeseen time-space phenomenon (which were actually more common than people thought), this would probably be her only chance to see the planet most of her shipmates called home.

Now, with the fight over and the injured delivered to the hospital, Kes was leading Scully, Quinn and Wade back to Sunnydale high school. She had the route memorized from their journey to the Bronze, of course, so on the way back, she was able to concentrate less on the road and more on the surroundings. It was indeed a beautiful planet, completely unlike the desert world where she grew up. No wonder her friends were so eager to return to it.

Kes finally reached the library door and led the others inside. The Doctor - not her Doctor, but the tall one with the scarf - was the only one in the main room. He was busily working on some kind of robot that sat on the table. The robot had "K9" written on its side in large characters.

"Doctor," said Kes, "where did everybody go?"

"They're back in the stacks," the Doctor said, "having their horizons expanded, if I'm not mistaken. I thought I'd be more useful out here, putting some more brain power to work on our problem."

"That's a neat toy," said Wade, admiring the robot.

The Doctor looked hurt. "This is not a toy!" he insisted. "This is my dog, and he's very clever. Aren't you, K9?"

"Affirmative, Master," chirped the robot.

"How does it work?" Wade asked, growing more curious by the minute.

"Oh, it's rather complicated, I'm afraid," said the Doctor. "A bit beyond the science of this time period. There's just one problem. I can't seem to get him connected to the local computer network."

"What's wrong?" Wade asked.

"Well, in all the centuries of computer evolution I've seen," the Doctor replied, "I don't think the human race has ever figured out how to make its interface configurations any simpler."

"Having trouble with the IRQ settings, aren't you?" said Wade as she sat down in front of the computer terminal. "Let me take a look."

Satisfied that one of her charges was now gainfully occupied, Kes turned to lead Quinn and Scully to the stacks. Before she could take a single step, though, Professor Arturo appeared in the doorway.

"Quinn Mallory!" Arturo shouted. "As I live and breathe..." He bounded down the steps and rushed to embrace Quinn, momentarily oblivious to the way Quinn was looking at him.

"You have no idea how long I've been searching for you!" cried Arturo. "Ever since we got separated on..."

"Wait just a minute!" Quinn barked, pushing Arturo back. "They told me you were here, but I didn't believe it. Which... which Professor Arturo are you?"

Arturo was taken aback for a moment, but recovered quickly. "Yes, of course," he said, somewhat subdued. "I should have realized... I take it from your reaction that my double is..."

"Dead," Quinn finished for him.

"I see. Well, you certainly have my condolences."

"You're him, aren't you?" said Quinn. "The Arturo from the world we thought was our home? You tried to make us think you were our Professor, right up to the very moment we slid. And you're still trying, aren't you?"

"Quinn, let it go!" said Wade, finally looking up from the computer after trying to bury her head in it.

Arturo turned and looked at the woman. "My dear Miss Welles! I didn't see you there at first. Is Mister Brown here as well?"

"Professor," said Wade, looking pained, "right now I don't care which Professor you are. The man I thought of as Professor Arturo is dead. Let's just leave it at that until we've taken care of the mess we're all in. Okay?"

The Professor looked cowed. Obviously he had met some version of Wade in the past and had cared about her. "Of course," he said. "Well, then, shall I take you back into the stacks? There are some fascinating trans-dimensional phenomena going on back there..."

Wade relaxed as Arturo returned up the library steps. Quinn, on the other hand, continued to glower suspiciously at the Professor.

"Quinn!" Wade hissed at him. "I said drop it!"

Quinn turned to Wade and began to object, but Wade's glare silenced him instantly.

Satisfied that the matter was settled, at least for the moment, Kes took Quinn and Scully and hurried to catch up to the Professor and the others. She couldn't help hoping that whatever personal problems were going on would soon be overshadowed by the more cosmic events of the evening.

***

The vampires' trail was still warm. As warm as a trail left by the undead could be, at any rate.

Buffy didn't enjoy ditching everyone back at the Bronze, but there were times when a Slayer had to do what a Slayer had to do. They had been lucky during the fight. The only deaths had been of the vampire variety, and the injuries had been few. Buffy did not want to press that luck any further. She hoped the others would understand.

She crept through the darkness alone, her senses telling her that the vampires had passed these very same places recently. As she had suspected, they were heading for the graveyard. That was one good thing about vampires. Even the aliens among the undead were predictable.

Buffy was busy surveying the terrain when she heard footsteps behind her. Maybe the alien vampires weren't so predictable after all. She didn't sense their approach, but as in the Bronze, her senses were somewhat confused by all the non-humans in town.

The footsteps grew closer, and more numerous. Some of them were better concealed than others, but Buffy guessed there were about a half-dozen individuals approaching. She quickly found a hiding spot and waited.

When the footsteps were almost on top of her, Buffy drew her stake and charged out of hiding - straight into Xander's face. He screamed and fell over backwards.

"Xander! Are you all right?" Kimberly cried. Buffy noticed that the girl was still carrying Joxer's sword.

"Me?" said Xander. "Of course. I was just, uh, shouting out my war cry, then getting out of the way so you could dispose of our enemy... who isn't really an enemy after all, so it's a good thing you didn't dispose of her. Right?"

"Xander, what are you doing here?" Buffy cried. "What are any of you doing here?"

"We came to help," said Harry.

"Right," added Ace. "Besides, we've got scores to settle with those vampires, too."

Buffy looked around and saw Garak and Riker bringing up the rear of the group. "So who are they supposed to be? Chaperones?"

"In case you didn't notice," said Riker, "we used to know a couple of the vampires you're chasing. We'd like to catch up with them ourselves."

"You don't know them any more," Buffy replied. "They may look like your friends, but they're not. Your friends are dead."

"All the more reason to catch those creatures," Garak answered. "If our friends are dead, they should be laid to rest."

Buffy knew there would be no winning this argument. What was it about sidekicks that kept them from listening to reason? Why couldn't they just stay put like they were supposed to?

"Okay," Buffy relented, "but stay together. I know where the vampires are heading, and it's not far."

She turned back the way she was going before, pressing on toward the graveyard. She tried to pull out a little ahead of the group, but not too far in case trouble came up behind them. All the while, she found herself hoping this wasn't an enormous mistake.

"It's tough, isn't it? Being the Slayer, I mean."

Buffy had been so focused that she didn't notice when Kimberly came up beside her. The two girls walked together, still slightly ahead of the others.

"How much did Xander tell you?" Buffy asked.

"He gave me the details, but I'd already figured things out in general. Back where I come from, I kind of have a job like yours."

"Let me guess," said Buffy. "Rampaging hordes of evil, you're the only one who can stop them, nobody else can know about it, blah blah blah...?"

"Well," said Kimberly, "I'm part of a team, not a solo act like you. But otherwise, yeah, you've pretty much got the idea."

"Did you ever wonder what they were thinking when they put the safety of the world in the hands of kids like us?"

Kimberly smiled and laughed softly. "All the time," she replied.

***

Willow had decided to take her group through Weatherly Park and then back toward the school. Things had been quiet so far. The only excitement came when Marcus took out the strange metallic staff he carried with him. When he carried it in his clothes, it was only a few inches long, but at the touch of a button, it telescoped out to the same size as Gabrielle's staff.

"You've got to tell me where I can get one of those," Gabrielle told the Ranger.

"This is a Minbari fighting pike," Marcus replied. "They're extremely rare, even where I come from."

"Minbari?" Gabrielle repeated. "Is that anywhere near Corinth?"

Willow continued listening to the chatter until a sight suddenly stopped her in her tracks. A large stone building was sitting among the trees, about halfway through the park. It had a round core, with what looked like a large round chimney in front. A larger but thinner section wrapped around the rear of the building, extending out from the core on both sides. The structure vaguely reminded Willow of an elephant's head, with its trunk sticking up into the air. She had never seen the place before.

"Guys," she told her group, "I swear that wasn't here this afternoon."

"Well, if something - or someone - is bringing people to Sunnydale," said Marcus, "I suppose they could do the same thing to buildings."

"Or maybe whoever is behind all this has brought their headquarters along with them," suggested Bashir.

"We must attack at once!" shouted Leela.

"Or not," suggested Mulder. "In this part of the universe, we try to find out who we're attacking before we attack them."

"Right," said Marcus. He turned to Willow and told her, "Why don't you stay here? We'll just have a quick look around and be right back."

Willow nodded her agreement. Marcus turned and led Mulder, Bashir and Leela toward the building. Only Gabrielle lingered behind.

"Are you doing okay?" Willow asked the young woman.

Gabrielle turned to face Willow. "I've been on a lot of adventures before," she said. "And I've seen a lot of things. But the wonders you have in this world, the things you think are so ordinary... my world doesn't have anything like them." She smiled a bit and added, "I have this friend who's a great warrior, and I always try to be brave when she's around. It's a good thing she can't see me now."

"Join the club," said Willow.

A strange chirping noise interrupted the conversation. Oddly enough, it seemed to be coming from Willow's pocket. She remembered the strange wristwatch she had found in the Bronze. Maybe its owner had set an alarm or something.

Willow quickly pulled the watch out of her pocket. It was definitely the source of the chirping noise, but Willow still couldn't see what time the watch read or what the alarm was supposed to be for. She began poking at the various buttons on the side of the watch experimentally. One of them had to do something useful.

Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of light that seemed to come from nowhere. It swallowed Willow whole before she could react. She felt her feet leave the ground, but she couldn't see what was happening. There was a moment of disorientation, and then she was standing on a solid surface again. The only problem was that the solid surface was in an entirely different and unfamiliar place.

Willow looked around and found herself and the rest of her group standing in a large round chamber. The walls were black except for a set of small lights arranged to look like a star field. Several banks of computers sat in the middle of the chamber, arranged in a circle around a central platform. Next to them stood several metallic columns and a large white globe mounted on some sort of pedestal. Willow didn't recognize the hardware. She couldn't help being amazed at how it managed to look incredibly sophisticated and incredibly cheesy at the same time.

"What just happened?" asked Bashir.

"I didn't mean to do anything," said Willow. Holding up the watch, she added, "I was just trying to make this thing stop beeping, and all of a sudden - foom!"

"Where did you get that?" asked Mulder, hurrying to look at the watch.

"I found it at the Bronze," Willow told him. "What do you think it is?"

"Based on what just happened," said Bashir as he joined them, "I'd say it's a homing device for some sort of transporter system. All the more reason to believe these are the people who brought us here."

"I don't know about you guys," said Gabrielle, "but there was no flashing light the first time I came here. I would have remembered it."

"I agree," said Marcus. "This time was completely different."

"Where do you suppose we are?" said Willow.

"My best guess is we're inside that building we saw," said Mulder. "The size of the room looks about right."

"Then let's have a look around," said Marcus. "We were just going to do that anyway."

The group divided again to explore the chamber. Willow lost track of their progress as she became engrossed in the banks of computers. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't figure out what they were all supposed to do. Several of the panels didn't look like they were doing anything but flashing lights in attractive patterns. A number of the consoles weren't even labeled.

Willow turned around and found Gabrielle standing behind her, bedazzled at the sight of the unfamiliar technology. She gripped her staff as if it was the only thing keeping her upright.

"It's all right," Willow said, trying to be reassuring. "They're just computers."

"I've never seen one before," Gabrielle replied.

"Well, they don't bite," said Willow. "As long as they don't have demons in them, that is."

"Demons?" Gabrielle said, growing more pale.

"Uh, just a figure of speech," Willow said, quickly realizing that her joke had been a bad idea. She beckoned for Gabrielle to join her, then turned and reached out to the nearest console. "See?" she told the young woman, "Computers are totally harmless."

As Willow held her hand out, her fingertip accidentally touched one of the controls. Suddenly, a loud wailing siren sounded. Two pyramid-shaped objects on the consoles began flashing like police car lights. Willow vowed then and there never to touch anything unfamiliar again.

The rest of the group hurried to Willow's side, trying to see what was happening. As they gathered, a bright column of blue light formed in the space just outside the ring of computer consoles. The group watched in amazement as the image of an enormous disembodied head formed inside the column.

"Rangers, what is the matter?" asked the head.

"There's only one Ranger here," said Marcus, stepping forward. "What do you want?"

"What are you doing here?" asked the head. "How did you get into the Command Center?"

"We were hoping you could tell us that," said Mulder.

Before the head could reply, there were several more flashes of light, in a number of different colors. The group turned just in time to see five new arrivals materialize. They all wore tight-fitting spandex outfits, with stylized helmets that covered their entire heads. They seemed to be color-coded, too. One person wore red, another yellow, another blue, another black and the last one green.

"Zordon, we got your signal!" said the newcomer in red. Every word he spoke seemed to have the utmost urgency attached to it. He stopped as he saw Willow and her group. "Who are these people?" he asked. "What are they doing here?"

Bashir turned to the newcomers, trying to look as inoffensive as possible. "I'm Julian Bashir," he began, "and we were all just walking along when..."

"Rangers," boomed Zordon, interrupting Bashir, "I have determined that these intruders used the Pink Ranger's communicator to infiltrate the Command Center. We must act at once."

"What are you talking about?" said Marcus.

The green-clad stranger - Willow supposed he thought of himself as the Green Ranger - stepped forward. "What have you done with her?" he demanded.

"Done with who?" asked Mulder.

"Look, if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!" the Green Ranger bellowed in the same tone his red counterpart used. "And we'll make sure you're sorry you ever came here!"

I already am, Willow thought to herself.

The multi-colored Rangers all took up fighting stances. In response, Leela drew her knife and Marcus brought out his fighting pike. Things were about to get wildly out of control.

Suddenly, Gabrielle stepped forward. Mustering all her courage, she said, "Wait! This is ridiculous! There doesn't have to be a fight here. We can talk out our differences instead."

The chamber grew silent for a moment. Unfortunately, it didn't last. A new voice, high-pitched and reedy-sounding, broke the calm. "Ayyyiii yii yii!" it shouted. "Zordon, what's happening?"

A small humanoid robot burst into the chamber, bumping into Gabrielle from behind as it ran past her. The surprise was too much for the young woman. She gave a startled shout and swung her staff around, scoring a direct hit on the robot and knocking it backwards. It tumbled back the way it had come.

Chaos broke out in an instant as the Rangers charged into battle. Willow ducked as the rest of her group met the attack head-on. She knew she was only doing what she had been told to do, but she still felt guilty about it. If only there was some way for her to help.

The watch! It occurred to Willow that if the mysterious wristwatch, or whatever Zordon called it, had brought them to this place, it might be able to take them away from it as well. The only problem was that Mulder had taken the device from her. What had he done with it?

As the fight raged on, Willow spied the watch lying on the floor. Mulder must have dropped it. She carefully reached out, trying to grab the watch before someone stepped on her hand. The fight had taken a bizarre turn, with the multi-colored Rangers flipping and cartwheeling through the air almost as much as they delivered kicks or punches. Willow wondered if they were supposed to be a fighting force or a circus act.

Finally, she reached the watch and snatched it away, just as Mulder fell backwards onto the spot where it had been. Trying to keep her concentration as the battle raged on, Willow looked over the watch and tried to find the buttons she had pressed before.

"Guys!" Willow called. "Everybody hang on!" She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and pressed the buttons again.

Much to Willow's relief, the flash of light reappeared and enveloped them again. Willow felt the floor disappear under her, and the chamber was gone. She hoped they had left their rainbow of adversaries far behind.

End of Chapter 8

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