Emperor Xander
by Chaoseternus

Twenty-Nine

"He wouldn't dare," Ryan commented flatly, his face tellingly expressionless.

"I think he would," Clarke commented softly, "which leaves us with an opportunity."

Ryan glanced up sharply, his expression dark as he took in the expression on the face of his long term friend, "opportunity?"

Clarke nodded, "we know Kinsey's bent, we also know who a lot of his lackeys are, but I don't think we have any real idea of exactly how big the rot really is."

"You cannot seriously be considering using the boss as bait," Andrea commented, her expression void of the blankly professional and emotionless look that would have been expected of her had they been in public.

"Oh, I can," Clarke grinned, "Kinsey is a credible threat, we could move now and we could decapitate the monster but the body would be largely intact and like a hydra a new head or two would appear. It's not enough to kill the head; you need to burn most of the body as well."

"I don't like it," Andrea snapped.

"No, I don't expect you to," Ryan grimaced, glancing around the confined space of the armoured limo, "but he does have a point. Unfortunately, the risks are perhaps too great, if we fail, America may end up a dictatorship."

"If we just take out the head, all we do is defer the problem for a few years, perhaps not even that, we need to exorcise the cancer," Ding noted quietly, "we'll do as we must as always, but it'll be you who will be at most risk,"

"You know," Ryan said quietly, leaning backwards in his seat, his expression pensive, "if this gets out, and it always does, then one way or another, I don't think the American people are ever going to forgive us."

"Perhaps not," Clarke shrugged, "but Rainbow stands with you Mister President."


"Okay," Buffy said, her voice slurred, making Xander wince slightly as he caught sight of her bloody and broken lip, and beautiful shiner, "one troll hammer,"

"Did the negotiations get… aggressive?" Giles asked, his voice worried, but his eyes hiding a glint of amusement.

Buffy snorted, "No, I just made the mistake of suggesting to Dawn her 'crush' would never share her feelings."

Giles snorted, "quite, still that gives us two weapons that may harm Glory, but at most they will force her too retreat. I don't honestly know how we are going to kill her."

"Coming up empty?"

"Very, I'm afraid."

"Well," Buffy shrugged, dropping the hammer on a book trolley which promptly collapsed under the weight, "I have faith in you."

"Well, right now Faith is about all we have unfortunately."

"Really Giles, I would have thought she would have been a bit young for you."

Giles frowned; mentally playing back the last seconds of conversation then rolled his eyes, muttering about bloody teenagers under his breath as he pointedly turned back to his books.


"I'm afraid, killing gods is a little out of my jurisdiction," Bond commented softly, "but would she have been corporeal or not in her home dimension?"

"Not," Daniel winced, "probably. With the option of becoming corporeal."

"Then would the fact that she is corporeal here be an indicator of her weakened state?"

"No, the fact that she is not becoming incorporeal at will would indicate a weakened state, plus the fact that she isn't warping reality around her as she pleases."

Bond shrugged, "that we can tell."

Daniel winced, "Unfortunately true, still is the body her normal form or is it native?"

Bond blinked, "would that make a difference?"

"I don't know," he glanced up at Bond, the dusty tome in his lap almost forgotten, "but if it is somebody else's form that maybe, just maybe…"

"A weakness," Bond's smile turned predatory.


Maybourne shivered, his expression hiding all of his shock and despair as he contemplated the scale of the treason he was helping to commit. The number of stars he had seen the last few days, some NID loyal but most controlled, unwilling, bitter but knowing better then to betray.

Or did they?

Given the monumental scale of what they were doing, someone was almost certain to gain a conscience and turn themselves in, but would they be believed? Or more likely, would they find somebody who wasn't a part of the conspiracy before their 'Guardian Angels' dealt with them?

Perhaps, Perhaps not. It didn't really matter did it, his place was already decided and he had little doubt that one way of another, he would not see the end of the chaos. Either the loyalists would get him, not knowing that he was passing information to their superiors, or his fellows would find out, at which point his end would likely be long, drawn out and painful. The NID did after all have experts in that sort of thing; some he had even recruited himself.

Still, much as O'Neill would laugh at the very thought, he did not what was right and what was wrong. He had done many things he knew to be wrong before and after being recruited but this, this was no 'wrong' to be done and then mourned in the name of some empirical 'Greater Good', this would be an attack on the 'Greater Good' itself and that he could not allow.

No, he had done many things for his country, for his planet, had even betrayed her when necessary but he had never shoved a knife into her guts and he certainly hadn't laughed whilst doing so, as he knew Kinsey would.

That knife must not land, even if that meant he had to take it himself.


Tara was scared, she knew something had changed, something important, but she could not tell what. Yet… people all day had been deferring to her, treating her with respect, noticing her, acting as if they cared, from the dullest jock to the brightest geek, from the lowest outcast to the most vapid beauty queen.

It was… disquieting, she found herself longing to drop once more into comfortable obscurity, away from all the prying eyes but from the sinking feeling in her heart, she knew that was not likely to happen.

But this… wasn't this an extreme version of what she had wanted for Dawn? This the strongest protection she could think of, to be someone to be noticed and warded?

Of course… the magics had backfired; they must have backfired onto her, protecting herself not Dawn as she had wanted. Tara forced back some tears at the painful irony of it, wondering what had made the magics so… perfectly backfire. To be protected when you were trying to protect another? Normally such magics would just fail and painfully so.

She knew what she had to do though, she had to speak to Giles and she had to do it soon.