Chapter 29

The following is told from General Landry's POV.


The whole group was gathered around the conference table and Introductions were begun.

Landry just sat there as the strangers went first. He really hated being outside of the loop. Things were happening that would affect his people and he wanted to be on top of it. These people seemed to be a unit for the most part. Even a few of his own people were a part of it. That in itself was practically untenable. He trusted Jon O'Neill just as much as he did Jack. He shouldn't be a part of some clandestine group. And Dr. Summers was a very well respected addition to the SGC. He had a gruffness about him, and a sarcasm, that was outside of the norm for his field, but he fit in well with the soldiers and up until today had never indicated divided loyalties.

"I'm Rupert Giles, Chairman of the Watchers Council." This was the older man with glasses. He was obviously the leader of the group even without the title. They all waited for him to begin, and then for him to indicate that they could proceed.

Andrew Wells, Head of Disposition at the Watchers Council" The young protector. He was short, with blonde hair and a careless manner of dress. One of those geeky kids that tended toward the nervous side. He was definitely uncomfortable with the attention of the whole group. Mr. Giles smiled his approval, this was obviously important to the boy. The General wondered what "disposition" meant, but he didn't ask, hoping to just get through this part and move on.

"Gwen Holland, Mr. Giles' personal assistant." Average, tweedy stuffy British woman. Older than the majority of the group, who were in their 20's and 30's, but no older than the group on his side of the table.

"Willow Rosenberg, witch, Watcher, and leader of the Magical Troubleshooting Team for The Watchers Council" OOOOKKKKKK, so they were nuts? Although it was hard to convince himself of that entirely after seeing their modes of transportation. But still, witches and magic? Superior transporter tech sounded better to him.

"Jenny Summers, Slayer." This girl was all of 16. None of this made any sense. She was the one who Mr. Giles had indicated as belonging to Dawn. He vaguely remembered SG-1 talking about an incident involving Jonas' girlfriend and her adopted teenage daughter, so that meant that Dawn was the girlfriend. Them being family made a bit more sense he supposed, but slayer? What was that?

"Violet Summers, Slayer." This was Dr. Summers' wife. He had met her before. He also knew that they had a cousin in town, so that connected them. Again though, slayer?

"Josie Parish, Slayer and member of the MTT." "Michael Logan, member of the MTT." "Maria Logan, witch and member of the MTT" These three were part of the incident. The young blond girl was just that, young. This "slayer" thing must be some kind of title or something within the group. Witch might be more of a title too for that matter. Hmm. Interesting group none the less. The others were obviously a couple and they were very uncomfortable around the military group, The way the man held himself was just too defensive, and Maria was gripping his arm like she was nearly terrified.

"Cassie Frasier, but you all know me. Oh, yeah, I'm an alien for those who didn't know that." Well, that was interesting. Nearly the entire group of strangers looked completely shocked, while all of the military group were unfazed.

"Lieutenant Jon O'Neill. I'm a Clone of that old guy over there." Again with the shock on the wrong side of the room. Oh, this was starting to be a bit fun. He almost smirked.

"Jonas Quinn, AJ's dad and also an alien." Now THAT had a big reaction. There was a huge corus of "What?" and "Excuse Me?" before Mr. Giles shushed them and mumbled something and taking off his glasses to clean them. Jenny cleared her throat loudly and he hastily added, "Jenny's dad too."

"Dawn Summers, AJ's and Jenny's mom, Watcher, and portal maker." The woman glared at those in her group who were still murmuring about Jonas' revelation. She was one of the few that hadn't reacted at all to the status of Jonas, Jon and Cassie. That group was a family unit. They knew each other's secrets and kept them.

"Ava Johnson, Dawn's assistant and alien hybrid." This really got Sam's attention. She was already all ears and waiting, but now she had something to really latch on to. Hell even Vala was starting to look mildly interested in the whole situation.

Oh, my turn. Vala Mal'Doran, alien." She smiled brightly and General Landry struggled not to roll his eyes at her. Just had to put herself out there. There was really no reason for her to reveal something like that.

"Teal'c. I am Jaffa." At least he could understand Teal'c's reasoning. He operated under a code of honor and respect. If these strangers were willing to reveal themselves, then he would show good faith by reciprocating.

"Dr. Daniel Jackson. Hybrid?" This almost made Landry laugh. Daniel's curiosity was getting the better of him. He was cut off by his coligue though.

"Colonel Cameron Mitchell."

"Dr. William Summers. They call me Spike. Part time Watcher and Archeologist." Part time watcher? Must have something to do with his wife. Everyone who had identified themselves as slayers had a watcher with them. There must be some kind of correlation there.

There were assorted snorts, sniffs and laughs from the WC group at that minimal description, there must be something that they weren't sharing. It may be important to find out later, but right now he didn't have time to dwell on it. The man had passed the background checks, so it wasn't anything that would be public knowledge anyway.

"Ok, I'll finish this up quickly since I have a lot of questions and I can tell some of you do as well. I'm Jack O'Neill, and I am not old. This is General Hank Landry and he's in charge around here. And next to me is my wife, Colonel Sam Carter O'Neill, she works out of DC for the International Oversight Authority." Took long enough. Landry had expected Jack to get antsy a lot sooner. Maybe being married to Sam was making him more patient. He saw Daniel smiling at his friend. He was itching to move on as well. Well hell, who wasn't?

"You're an alien?"

"How the hell could you just blurt something like that out? Are you nuts?"

"What do you mean by witch exactly?"

Ok, he had really had enough of this.

"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!!" Everyone turned and stared at General Landry. "While all of this is very fascinating and all, can we please get to the reason we are all here. There was a breach of security here yesterday, perpetrated by Ms. Rosenberg and her team. They knew all about us and she is apparently one of those people who can't speak quietly into a cell phone because we got her first name as well as Jonas' from the contents of the phone call she made. Somebody please explain this." He waited while they looked to Mr. Giles who seemed to indicate that Willow should start things out.

Willow stood up. "Ok, I'll tell you exactly what happened and then Giles and Dawn will fill in the background information. Yesterday my team tracked a magical energy signature. There were, and still are, a large number of these signatures coming from DC, but we couldn't pinpoint on of them there because there were too many all together and they are kinda all washing together. We found a single one that matched the group in South Carolina and decided to go see what it was so that we would be able to deal with the bigger threat. When we got there we found that the magic was coming from a Cregnar demon. These guys use a sort of mind control magic on a target and control their actions either subtly or overtly. This demon was just starting his spell, so he hadn't got control of the guy yet, but he wasn't alone or with one of his own kind like they usually are. His helper in the ritual was that guy I dropped here. At first I thought he was human, but then he started spouting off in his weird voice about "I am your god" and stuff and I remembered what I had been told about those snake things, so I brought him here since that's your area. They were outside of the home of Senator Martin and using his picture as a focus for the spell. He was the target. Put that together with where the others are…… not good." She waved a hand and folders appeared in front of everyone. The file contained pictures of the demons, stats on their abilities and how they were killed, along with a picture of the Senator that had been targeted and a map of DC showing 4 large areas covered in purple. He was slightly impressed, they obviously were used to dealing with briefings of some kind and she was prepared to prove her case. The fact that he was being so calm in the face of the idea of demons was more due to him thinking that it was probably aliens instead. He just couldn't buy demons as real, although the pictures were certainly on the out there side.

"We can't pinpoint the casters at all. There are too many and they could be anywhere in the indicated areas, those are the big magical hot spots. Could be the victims, could be the demons, or both. We need to scout it out in person, and we need a large group to do it. More than we can really spare from our end. And I'm really sorry about dragging Jonas into this. He didn't tell me about you guys. He never said a word about them until we already knew. And I've read the NDA that he signed and it never says he can't talk about it with people who already knew."

"And who did tell you about it." He had a hunch.

Dawn raised her hand. "I did, but Jonas didn't tell me either." Ok, not what he was expecting. Also not actually helpful.

"Who did?" A straight answer wouldn't kill them

Cassie spoke up. "I did." That's what he thought. There was simply no other reason for her presence here. She had nothing to add and wasn't a part of this 'Council' of theirs. That meant she was connected some other way and this was the only thing he could think of. Also, if he remembered correctly, there wasn't much paperwork on her after her adoption outside of medical records. There was a good possibility that she had never signed an agreement, especially since it had already been mentioned. They knew about it, and what it said. It was also comforting since he knew her exposure to the project had been extremely limited even before her mother's death. Frankly, if someone was going to tell, she was the one he preferred.

Jack, Sam and Daniel all yelled "What!" while Teal'c raised an eyebrow at her. The General just nodded at her reassuringly. He didn't want to make a major issue out of it right now, but he would definitely be getting her to sign as soon as he could find a copy of the papers.

"What? I never signed anything. Besides at the time they really needed to know. It's not like I just go around blabbing to everyone I meet." She relaxed a bit when she saw his expression. She had probably been ready for a fight.

Cameron piped in. "And why did they need to know?"

This is where Dawn stood and took over the story. She seemed uncomfortable, but not nervous about speaking. There was something in the story itself that bothered her. "About 2 years ago Spike showed up on the doorstep of the Slayer's Rest. It's a private retreat that I run for the WC. He had gotten his ass handed to him and told us the story of how. There was this group of demons all heading to Colorado Springs to follow this woman calling herself Persephone. Spike thought she was a witch. She spoke with the weird timbered voice and had glowing eyes and used what he thought was an energy spell to knock him around. She was going to lead a demon assault on the base to get to the Stargate. She told them it was a big portal leading to a demon paradise. When Jon, Jonas and Cassie heard the story they knew what she was. They had been having movie night with Jenny, Robyn (another slayer who used to live with us) and I when he showed up. We explained the demons and what we do to them and Cassie decided to tell us the bare basics of the SGC and the alien threat. They told the whole story of who they were to us, but we kept it from the Council for a couple of reasons. First, it wasn't important to what we needed to do, and second because my family is a little overprotective of me and I didn't want them going after Jonas or anything. Especially since I had found out I was pregnant that same day.

Anyway, info was exchanged; we called in Vi and some others for backup and took care of it. We got intel on the group, got the bitch alone and grabbed her. Using her as bait, we gathered her little army together, trapped them and killed them all. We interrogated Ugly Witch Bitch to see if she knew anything that would help you, she didn't so we were going to call Willow and have her try to remove the parasite and save the host. She got out and tried to attack me and I shot and killed her."

Dawn's voice had started to shake near the end and when she finished she sat back down and rested her head on Jonas' shoulder. This had to have been traumatic, but the idea that they had hidden such a threat from them, and him, had him nearly fuming.

"They were planning an attack on us and you didn't think we should know?"

Mr. Giles answered that. "There was some previous bad experience with the military knowing about what we do. They decided that doing experiments on demons and creating their own super soldier with parts of demons, humans and technology was a good idea. It didn't work out well for anyone and almost everyone involved was killed by their creation. We cleaned it up, but it made us reluctant to deal with the government. They assure me that they would have contacted you if Persephone had known anything helpful or you needed warning of the planned attack." Landry knew that there were untrustworthy groups in the US government. He had seen the work of the Trust and the NID and had a hard time blaming them for their caution. He could also see Jon not wanting to reveal anything to any part of the government that might get back to those groups and put people in danger. He saw Jack's face an knew that he wasn't going to question that part of the story.

"You weren't there? I thought you were in charge." Jack said. That was actually….a really good question. Good work Jack.

"Overall yes. However, Colorado Springs is Dawn's territory and she has the right to deal with the demons she runs into here as she sees fit. She did call me the next day and fill the board of the Council in on what happened." The general power structure was starting to come into focus now.

Daniel spoke up now. "Can someone tell us about this witch, portal, demon thing now before Sam explodes?"

They all looked over at Sam, who was looking like she was about to bubble over with questions, but trying to hide it.

Landry nodded and Giles began the Slayer story. He spoke of demons and shadowmen and girls destined for war and death. He told of thousands of years of battle, of the Watchers and what their role had become. He told the story of a young woman who fought and died and returned more than once to continue her never ending battle. He told of the last battle of Sunnydale and how it had been destroyed ten years earlier. It was a story of great evils and great courage. He obviously left things out, you could see it in the faces of those who had been there, but frankly Landry didn't want to know any more of the horrors than he already did. Then he started talking about who the Watchers Council now was and what they did, and about Dawn's ability to open portals. "She has a special Mystical element to her blood that gives her that ability. There is nothing physiologically different from her sister, or anyone else, just a magical property. Her son doesn't even have that, but he does have some power that we don't understand yet, as you've seen him demonstrate. As for Ava's revelation, I honestly have no idea what she's talking about I thought she was a witch, as did everyone else."

The General looked to the girl and motioned for her to tell them her story.

Ava smiled slightly. "Yeah, well, many years ago on a planet called Antar there was a coup and the king, queen, the king's second in command and his betrothed, who was the king's sister, were killed. The king's mother was heartbroken and took the genetics from the royal four and spliced it with human DNA. She created hybrids and sent them to earth so that they might live again. She created 2 sets, one with the memories of their past selves and one without. The group crashed in Roswell in 1947. The protector of the children managed to escape custody with them and place them in stasis for over 40 years. The sets of children were separated and one was left in Roswell while the other, the one with the memories who were thought to be the inferior, ended up in New York. I was one of those. When we exited stasis we were confuse and scared and bombarded with all of these memories. My family, Rath, Zan, and Valondra, we were really messed up. Especially Loni and Rath. She had apparently betrayed us in our previous life and planned to do it again. Rath had a lot of anger, and she was able to manipulate him. They killed Zan and threatened me." She broke off and took a breath

"There were some people from our home around trying to get to us. I'm still hiding from them. We met up with our copies and found out that the government wanted them and that my copy was not a good person. Michael and Maria knew her, that's why he acted the way he did when he saw me. She did some terrible things. She killed one of their friends and hurt some people. Apparently she is dead though if I heard him right. Anyway, I got away from everyone and kept running. As far as I know Rath and Loni are dead. I came into town about 6 months ago and got a job working with Dawn. She, Jonas, Jenny, and Andrew are the only ones I told about who I really was. Everyone else we told I was a witch like Willow and the others."

That was interesting. Again a distrust of the government. That explained the defensiveness and fear from the Logan couple. They knew about this and were probably more involved than Ava had said. OK, so trust was going to be an issue here. Considering what brought them here he could relate.

Mr. Giles cleared his throat. "Thank you my dear. Now that we are all clear on the important things. I think we need a plan to deal with the situation in Washington DC. General, what did you find out from your prisoner?"

Landry was quiet for a moment as he considered whether he should work with this group or try to handle it internally. They knew nothing about demons in general; much less these specific ones and they could use the help of whoever they could trust at this point. It seemed these people were well equipped for this kind of work and they definitely had experience keeping secrets. For now trust was a good tactical decision. "Not much. Just that he works with a covert group called the Trust and that he is working with other go'auld here on earth. What exactly do you think they are trying to do?"

Willow answered. "We think they are using the Cregnars to control key players in government. From the way the signatures are varied a bit I'd say they are outright controlling a few while subtly nudging others. Like making them distrust certain people or trust others, things like that. If I were you I'd watch my back. They have a vested interest in the SGC from what I know and they might target you or just use those they already control to mess with things." This was disturbing. He could be target either directly or they could have victims that could interfere without needing to do that. He couldn't ask permission to proceed from his superiors and he couldn't really trust himself to deal with it either. In fact the less he knew about the whole thing the better. At least until it was over.

Mitchell spoke next. "I wouldn't tell the higher ups about this sir. It might get back to either the controllers or the controlees and they could lash out."

He nodded. "I agree. So, here's what I'm going to do. SG-1, you are officially on an extended leave. I don't want to see or hear from you for at least 2 months. Colonel O'Neill, I'm going to request you be based here at the SGC for a few months to work on some of our experiments. I'm sure your husband won't mind accompanying you. I hear there is a very nice inn just outside of town, and you know the owner. I believe the cost of temporary relocation is covered for you, according to your contract." He smiled at Sam's expression and Jack nodded approvingly.

"As for the security breach, we will deal with that when SG-1 returns from leave. If you'll excuse me I need a drink." With that he went to his office and spent the rest of the day in seclusion. He did paper work, he shuffled files and "lost" the information on the breach, he cleaned his office. He would know absolutely nothing about this whole thing.