Rupert Giles glared at the two guilty culprits nervously standing next to each other in front of his office desk. If he'd wanted to be some sort of clichéd headmaster for a private educational facility with all of its disruptive students, eccentric staff, and an unknowing public who thought the Joyce Summers Academy was a completely ordinary boarding school, Giles would've chosen an entirely different career path starting at his late teens. Oh, that was right, him becoming a Watcher had still eventually led to this Englishman as being the person in charge of the New Council and bearing all the many responsibilities for this position. Which, by the by, forced this mature man to deal with such utterly moronic issues as the reason Dawn Summers and Andrew Wells were here for today.

In an acid voice which sounded as if it could etch glass, Giles demanded from the pair summoned to judgment, "How the bloody hell do you lose a robot?"

Dawn and Andrew shiftily met each others' gazes out of the corners of their eyes. Next, the young man and the girl his age sent in concert a hopeful glance at the left portion of the office where Willow was seated in a couch up against the far wall. Seemingly paying no attention to the silent appeal coming from Dawn and Andrew, Willow went on scrolling through her laptop perched onto her thighs. Noting how this lack of reaction from Willow was making the young twits suffer even more, Giles leaned back in his chair and maintained a basilisk stare towards the younger Scoobies without another word for the next few moments.

Just when the tense office atmosphere was about to become even more strained, Willow announced without looking up from the laptop screen she'd been steadily reading, "Me, I'd rather know exactly how you sneaked the purchase of a level four biohazard airlock past the guys in Accounting as part of your shared term paper on inter-dimensional portals, Dawn."

Profoundly grateful that question hadn't been directed to him in particular, Andrew unconsciously leaned away from Dawn, leaving her totally on her own. Noticing this, Dawn scowled at a traitorous research partner and impulsively decided that if she was going down in flames, Andrew was coming along, too, as well-flambéed as she could manage.

"He's the one who put the order slip in the to-do files! We never really thought they'd go for it! All it was up to that point was just an idea we were playing around with in the middle of a Stargate marathon!"

Feeling he'd missed something here, Giles cast a quizzical glance at where Willow was finally giving the standing pair a very jaundiced look. She sighed at them, "So that's when you had the bright idea to combine the Stargate program's MALP rover with a Buffybot to investigate other dimensions?"

"Er, what's a MALP, anyone?" broke in Giles who had three heads turn towards him at that specific mystified question. It was Willow who answered, though, in the same weary voice she'd just used on Dawn and Andrew.

"The initials stand for a Mobile All-Terrain Laboratory Probe, Giles. It's a miniature remote-controlled wheeled drone vehicle loaded with attached instruments and sensors to find out the local conditions on other planets reachable through a wormhole connecting separate parts of the universe hundreds of light-years apart. Most important of all, that piece of technology from a science fiction television show is totally imaginary!" ended Willow with a derisive sniff.

Andrew indignantly spoke up, "But the Buffybot isn't! I already had the schematics and parts to build one, so after we worked out everything in advance, Anne was sent through…"

It was right then and there that Andrew trailed off while every sweat pore on his skin promptly burst into overdrive, turning both armpits and his crotch into odiferous swamps. He, like every other human on earth, had as part of this normal flight-or-fight response inherited from ancient primates who'd just realized the small, pink cavern with pointy white stalagmites and stalactites at all four corners was in fact a lion's open mouth they'd just been about to walk inside.

The fearsome expression presently upon Willow Rosenberg's features easily matched the time years ago that a now-terrified Andrew remembered when he'd gone on the run after Warren had murdered the Red Witch's girlfriend and horribly paid for that crime. Too scared to even move, Andrew merely closed his eyes and waited for death.

A concerned Giles and Dawn didn't dare to interfere, either. Holding their breaths, these two watched Willow struggle for control, her scarlet hair developing streaks of black throughout. Fortunately, Willow soon calmed down sufficiently to regain her normal human temper rather than embodying the supreme force of supernatural power which had one day in the past nearly destroyed the entire world. It didn't mean that Willow was going to let off easily today Dawn and especially jerk-face Andrew.

Icily lecturing them both, Willow admitted, "Your safety protocols were perfectly fine, I have to say. You did a real good job keeping anything bad from getting through Dawn's portal to here. However, the big problem has to do with sending a magical construct the other way to a baseline universe!"

Dawn risked, "Well, sure. We wanted a simple starting point for comparisons, so what's wrong with that, picking a dimension without any magic?" Even if Dawn had been about to argue with Willow with her above opening statement, the Key felt her mood abruptly sink due to seeing how Wils started a slow, sad headshake at Dawn's final words.

Willow then explained. "Dawn, there's no way a Buffybot can exist without magic. Technology just isn't advanced enough today to create an actual artificial intelligence. You need magic now to add to the programming that'll mimic the human personality close enough to fool other people, much less work the way it's supposed to. So, if you sent…Anne…to a magic-less dimension, that robot probably malfunctioned at once, shorting out completely. The best case is, it was somewhere remote where the body won't ever be found."

Dawn traded appalled glances with Andrew, who'd recovered somewhat from finding out he'd survive this day. She turned back to where Willow was thoughtfully going on.

"On the other hand, dimensions lacking that much mystical energy are a lot rarer than you might think. There's usually some, mostly in life-bearing worlds like this one. Even if the people there can't tap into it at all or only occasionally so that they think magic is just stories, this still exists. Which translates into the potential for major weirdness when something with magic already in it comes from out of nowhere into that new dimension."

"Such as?" inquired a worried Giles, bringing a baffled shrug from Willow.

"Honestly, anything could happen. Imagine a magnet the size of a backpack being dropped into a swimming pool filled to the brim with powdered iron. It's just as possible magic everywhere will be instantly attracted to the Buffybot, but I can't predict what'll happen to it after that. All I know is this robot is extremely unlikely to ever come back through the portal here. If Dawn and Andrew decide to try again, it'll probably end the same way."

Straightening up in his chair, Giles solemnly declared, "Oh, no, it damned well won't."

He fiercely glowered at the duo beyond his office desk now pinned under his unblinking frown. "Your research project is now finished, done with, over. Turn in everything you have on hand - your materials, papers, et cetera - and start with a completely new one. Keep in mind that this time, there will be full and continuous oversight on whatever you lot come up with! Also, don't you have a portal to close before a Stygian monster from elsewhere decides to come through it and see if the whole of mankind is indeed crunchy and good with catsup?"

Gladly making a break for the office door, Dawn and Andrew almost made it before a final clearing of someone's throat was made from behind them. Pausing to glance over their shoulders, the youngest Scoobies saw how Rupert Giles was smiling evilly at them.

"One more thing, Dawn, Andrew. Buffy will be back with Xander and Vi from their demon-hunting mission in Warsaw sometime tonight, so you can meditate upon your sins until then. Of course, confession is good for the soul, so kindly tell your sister at the first opportunity everything you've been up to with her latest robot double. Pass along to her that whatever punishment she decides for you both is fine with me. Now, don't let me keep you here, hmm?"

The closing door clicked shut after Dawn and Andrew despondently slunk together out of the room. Only then did Willow let loose her gleeful sniggers which echoed throughout the office.

Looking over at where a laughing witch was seated on the couch, Giles let a contented expression settle on his lined countenance. However difficult his job was at times, there were also the occasional perks, including terrorizing wayward subordinates like any proper school headmaster. When you had a Slayer on hand with serious identity issues which hadn't been helped the slightest in Sunnydale by having a perfect double with a total lack of tact and an obsession with a pomaded blond vampire, why would you actually need to carry out corporal punishment with a cane upon some malefactor's upturned rear in the Prefect's Room?

Finally quieting down, Willow grinned at her fellow office occupant. She then said in a musing tone, "You know, Giles, I didn't get a chance to say this before, but the Buffybot might find herself back to what she'd been like the first time we met her. Or, even improved for the better."

Giles' eyebrows lifted in mild surmise. "What, you mean as an effect from going to that new dimension?"

"Yup," Willow nodded.

Thinking it over, Giles allowed himself a faint shudder. "Just as long as that other android doesn't behave the same way the original did around me."

In another world filled with zombies:

"It's D-A-R-Y-L! Daryl! Stop calling me the wrong name!"

"Okay, Darrell. Now take off your pants and make me a woman!"