Haloed Away

by Shadow Master

(BtVS/Halo/Stargate SG-1) Contrary to what some might think the direct approach is not always the best way to win a fight. Sometimes a more indirect strategy is better. In this case though...the idiot should've just kept things simple.

1. Chapter 1

"Haloed Away" by Shadow Master

(BtVS/Halo/Stargate SG-1)

email: ryley[underscore]breen

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the copyrighted material contained herein. They are the rightful property of their creators and/or their associated companies. I make no profit from this story whatsoever and I have no intention of changing this at any point in the future. I write fan fiction because it's fun and because there are those who enjoy reading my work. I would appreciate it if no legal action were taken against me. I can assure all relevant parties that whatever money you'd get from me wouldn't cover even a tenth of your legal fees.

Note: In terms of timeline this takes place early season three for BtVS, early 2517 in the Halo-verse and prior to the events of the modern day events of the first Stargate movie.

Note 2: I am doing the best I can to read, watch and review as much Halo source material as I can get. I have the books, comic books and will watch the cutscenes on youtube as well as read some of the better fan fiction involving Halo in order to become competent with the franchise. Nevertheless this is fair warning to any diehard Halo fans out there: while I will do my best to accurately utilize the information gleaned from the source material it is likely that there will still be some errors. Please be understanding as you read.

Haloed Away

Sunnydale City Hall, Mayor's Office

Richard Wilkins the First, Second and Third's POV

The future.

It is something that ever marches towards you but you can never grasp it because, just before it gets within reach, it transforms into the present, forcing you to accept any form it takes. There are those who do all they can to force the future to take the form they desire. They scheme, manipulate, betray and in some cases cross every line of morality known to man in order to gain what they desire. Those who hold human morality in high regard purposefully restrict themselves from crossing certain lines so that they may enter into whatever desirable afterlife their respective religions depict.

Fortunately for him, he had no such desire to enter into one of those religious afterlives and much preferred to spend eternity in the land of the living in a satisfactory position.

That was why he had spent almost a full century working towards the brass ring that even the most renowned warlocks would hesitate to attempt to seize. Why did others not try? For one thing the odds of meeting every requirement, on schedule, without being foiled by either the forces of light or rivals amongst the forces of darkness were almost impossible. The forces of light would oppose anyone reaching the goal because it would upset their precious 'balance' and because there were few 'champions' that would be capable of vanquishing what he would become. The forces of darkness would wish to stop him because not only would his new form blow the veil of secrecy they'd worked so hard to construct into nothingness, it would also place him at the very top of the pecking order. The 'veil of secrecy' had been enacted almost two centuries ago when a meeting took place between parties on both sides, on both mortal and immortal levels. Surprisingly enough the meeting had been requested by the forces of darkness, who voiced concerns about the technological potential humanity was displaying. The representatives of the dominant demon lords were worried that, with increasing strides in weapons development and transportation design, humans might soon gain the means to wipe them out. When the forces of light asked why they should be opposed to that, they were reminded that not all demonic factions fell under the banners of their masters. While individually they might not be a threat, together they would do quite a bit of damage up to and including triggering the apocalypse.

There was also enough of a chance that these unaligned factions could very well succeed even if forces from both the light as well as the dark attempted to stop them.

Those factions would rather take their chances with the chaos or new arrivals their actions would bring to Earth than allow the human race to become powerful enough to commit demonic genocide on them all.

Solutions were debated, argued and a few representatives on both sides even killed each other but terms were agreed upon. Efforts would be made on both sides to suppress the existence of the supernatural either by adopting concealment tactics or by thoroughly discrediting occult information sources in the eyes of the human public. Science would become mankind's sole manner of understanding the reality they lived in and demon kind would police their own in order to keep anything more than rumor or speculation from entering the public's sphere of thought. By doing this humanity would be allowed to continue to advance and develop without agitating the non-aligned factions into bringing about an end to the status quo currently being enjoyed by both parties.

Considering what he had planned for the end of the current school year, it would definitely make it impossible for the uninformed public from realizing the truth.

Fortunately he had one advantage: the Slayer.

Despite the fact that Elisabeth 'Buffy' Summers had managed to put quite a few feathers in her cap, she was still just ONE warrior and not a very bright one at that. Then again, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she was intelligent but chose not to use it in favor of being able to appear 'normal' to those around her. Indeed, all the information he had been able to acquire on the blonde girl suggested a psychological obsession with behaving and living a life consistent with who she would've been had she never been Called. While she was not entirely negligent in her duties as 'champion', neither was she as dedicated to the cause as someone of her station should be in order to achieve optimum results.

Despite these flaws, the forces of light had not dispatched additional forces to the most powerful and active hellmouth on the planet in an effort to fully secure Sunnydale. Instead they put the entire weight of the local situation on the shoulders of one Slayer, her high school friends and her Watcher. True, with the addition of the second Slayer, Faith LeHane, and her wet behind the ears Watcher, the threat level of the self-proclaimed Scoobies had gone up a bit but not by much. As a result they were only now beginning to realize he existed and the extent of his influence atop the hellmouth. They did not know about his endgame, his Ascension into a full demon, but if Alan kept leaning in the same direction as he currently, was that could change.

It was such a shame that Samuel failed to instill a proper sense of loyalty and dark ambition in his son. The man had been a dedicated acolyte who would have shared in the spoils if he hadn't been so careless with whom he slept with and contracted A.I.D.S. It was one of the reasons why he'd adopted a dedicated hygiene regime when he had since it just wouldn't do for him to catch some nasty disease before he rose above such disgusting things.

If Alan managed to inform his enemies of his intentions, it was not inconceivable that they might disrupt the final stages of his efforts enough to render all of them useless.

That was unacceptable.

He had not worked so hard, done so much, to be undone by a group of teenagers and their pet Watcher!

Therefore he needed to take steps in order to ensure that they would not or could not stop him from achieving his objectives. Outright killing the Slayers and their Watchers would appear to be the right course of action to the heavy fisted but he knew better. Such aggressive action would only attract the attention of the forces of light and might prove enough to get them to commit some of their more dangerous non-Slayer assets to investigate. That'd mean arcane practitioners and former spec ops soldiers armed with weapons that'd proven effective against demons but didn't require they get too close to said demons. Despite their non-Slayer status, they would prove more effective against him than Summers and her crew due to their experience and dedication.

Instead he would make Slayer Summers… vanish, as in 'vanish with sufficient clues left behind to send the Watcher's Council on a wild goose chase far away from Sunnydale'.

By making her disappear in just the right way there would be no reason to give Sunnydale a closer look and, if he was precise enough, would encourage them to look elsewhere for her.

Vampires will be minion enough for the task, he thought as a plan began to form in his mind. However to truly make sure she can't come back to ruin my plans, I will need something… special.

Banishment.

Dimensional banishment.

It would certainly put her far beyond her ability to return but the only flaw in that idea was every dimension he or an employable mage could send her was known to the forces of light. Depending on how badly they desired her return to this dimension, it would not be impossible for them to locate her and bring her back. He needed to send her to a dimension that was not known to or easily accessible to the forces of light but for that he would need an object from that dimension. Virtually all known dimensions had the necessary rituals, ceremonies and spells needed to visit them recorded somewhere. Some of the more commonly visited ones could be found in virtually any book or scroll centered on the relevant topic but some of the less common ones could only be found in the libraries of experts on dimensional travel. To send Slayer Summers to a dimension not known to the forces of light, he would need to compose a spell on his own and to ensure a stable connection he needed something with the vibrational frequency of the destination dimension.

While difficult, he knew of someone, a local of Sunnydale, who might have just what he required.

The man had a fascination for throwing a metaphorical net out and pulling in whatever got caught in it. In this case the man's sea was the ether between dimensions and the potential catches were the flotsam that got dumped in the ether by breaches of various sizes that opened long enough for something to pass through it. True, the man's early efforts had resulted in him becoming infected with some sort of genetic rewriting virus that made him human in appearance only but their past dealings hadn't been all that unreasonable. Just a few files he'd acquired on the movements of an obscure order of monks in Europe. They weren't all that current but the man had been grateful to receive them nonetheless and considered them adequate payment for the services he required.

Now, what would be adequate payment for a one of a kind item from a dimension not yet visited never mind explored?

I'm sure I have something I can trade for what I desire, he thought without too much worry. Almost anything would be worth sacrificing if it ensured that my Ascension became one Slayer lighter.

With that in mind he began to map out how his manipulations would unfold, factoring in multiple contingencies for every stage of the plan in order to ensure its success.

After, all a well-conceived plan was worth more than its weight in gold.

Much more indeed!

The Summers Family Home

Joyce Summers' POV

When did it all come to this?

It was a question she'd been asking herself ever since she'd first come across solid evidence of Hank's infidelity and it'd only gotten worse with Buffy's odd and violent behavior. Naturally she'd tried to figure out if it was something she'd done or if there was something wrong with them. When she ran out of answers she could come up with on her own, she'd started delving into various books she could buy that claimed to be able to explain what went on in the minds of troubled children. For Hank it was a little more obvious. The man was a RAT BASTARD! He preferred thinking with his little head and fooling around with his secretary, who was half his age, rather than remain true to the vows they took on their wedding day.

When Buffy began talking about monsters and vampires as if they really existed, it only got worse.

She'd argued with Hank, told him that their daughter needed counseling, not the extreme he was proposing, but in the end he wore down her resolve. Her darling baby girl was committed to psychiatric facility a week later with the promise that they would do everything they could to cure her of her 'delusions'. She'd dedicated herself to weekly visits to see how Buffy was doing but the times when her little girl was drugged or tied up in a strait jacket after a 'hostile altercation with facility staff', the pain proved to be too much. It was only a few months later when the doctor in charge of her daughter's care declared that Buffy had been cured that she'd truly believed that the nightmare was over. Indeed, the teenage girl appeared to be completely back to normal, saying that she'd just been acting out to get some attention in light of the friction caused by Hank's lack of faithfulness. It had made sense, it was rational, so she didn't hesitate to grab hold of it with both hands and accept it as truth.

She should have known better.

Looking out the window into the nighttime landscape of Sunnydale, she remembered how optimistic she'd been when they'd first arrived. It'd looked like your typical sleepy small town far away from the dangerous streets of Los Angeles but still in California, so they wouldn't be completely separated from the environments they knew. She'd tried to be nice and not too overbearing in the beginning but the books she'd read made it clear that it was important for parents to establish borders for their children, that giving them too much free reign would prevent them from accepting that there were consequences to their actions and that they had to act responsibly.

Buffy had just rolled her eyes, no doubt believing it to be standard mothering.

At first everything'd been working out, with her daughter making friends, having fun and applying herself in school, or at least as much as any teenager applied themselves.

Then the suspicious activity began again and, while some of Buffy's explanations were reasonable, others made it clear something was being hidden. Denial and a desire for things to not sour had caused her to turn away from what the various signs were telling her but rather to brush it off as normal teenager hijinks. However denial could only go so far and, when she saw a man turn into ash, crumbling into a pile on the front porch of her house… she got to enjoy the LOVELY experience of having her world turned upside down. She'd done what any person would do and clung to the version of reality she'd been raised to believe in because what she was being told was the truth was just too horrible. Demons, vampires, witches, warlocks and her daughter being some superhuman savior chosen by Fate!? It was all too much to handle and so she'd tried to fight her way back to the more appealing definition of reality and drag her daughter with her.

Too bad her daughter was even more stubborn than she was but given what was at stake and given time enough to come to terms with the truth, Buffy had made the right call.

Now… now she was just trying to roll with every new bit of weirdness that happened while providing a comforting place for her daughter to return to each night.

She might not be able to fight alongside Buffy but she could make sure she had food to eat, a bed to sleep in and she was contemplating taking lessons in first aid to help even more.

True, there'd be a limit to what she could handle with only first aid training and, if Buffy's injuries were more severe, a trip to the hospital would be needed. Still, her daughter had been to the hospital in the past and no nurse or doctor had said anything, so there shouldn't be in any danger should a future trip be required.

Immediately she squashed such thoughts as her imagination produced possible injury after possible scenario wherein her daughter could be hurt enough to require a professional surgeon. Instead she focused on the fact that Buffy hadn't been doing all these dangerous things alone but rather had a group of friends and at least one responsible adult helping her. Though she was still somewhat bitter towards Mister Giles for keeping the truth from her, for being there for her daughter when she couldn't, she was still reassured by his presence at her little girl's side.

Willow, a redheaded teenager with a thirst for knowledge that would probably get her to a job as a scientist or maybe an inventor working for a company. The girl was so shy it was cute and the way she'd looked at her friend Xander absolutely screamed crush. There were times when she'd had difficulty keeping her laughter on the inside with how clueless the young man seemed to be that his best friend was interested in him but couldn't take his eyes off Buffy. She'd heard her daughter speak about Xander around the house often enough to know that, from the beginning, the teenage guy was firmly welded into the 'friend' column. The only way it could've been made even funnier would be if her daughter was a closet bisexual and daydreamed about what it'd be like to make out with Willow.

She chuckled a bit at the imagery that produced as she looked away from the window.

Xander was a nice enough young man but either he suffered from a bad case of obliviousness or knowingly played dumb to the looks Willow was sending his way. She could understand that to a certain extent. They'd been friends since preschool from what she'd heard and it was difficult to make the jump from friend to girlfriend, especially in your teenage years when you're trying to make sense of all the new experiences and feelings you were having. Some just preferred keeping things the way they'd always been rather than risk it all on a move that could make it impossible to step back and be just friends again. It didn't surprise her that he was attracted to Buffy, either, as her little girl had always been fairly popular among her classmates AND spent quite a bit of money on making sure she looked her best. Whenever the time came to buy clothes for the new school year, she did what she could to get Buffy what she wanted but never let her budget out of her sight.

With Hank overseas screwing his secretary, she was a single mom with only an art gallery to earn enough money to support the two of them.

Shouldn't those Watchers be giving Buffy some kind of salary or monthly stipend? she thought to herself as the idea came out of left field. I mean, to hear Buffy talk about it, they've been around for centuries so they have to have a lot of money, right? Or at least things that could get them money. Right? Right. I'll have to ask Mister Giles about that next time I see him.

A knock at the door made her brows furrow in confusion since she wasn't expecting company and Buffy said she wouldn't be back for another hour when she called last. Setting down the book she'd been reading, she got out of her favorite chair and walked towards the door, remembering what she'd been told about precautions against the nonhuman just as she began to reach for the doorknob. Lowering her hand, she carefully peeked out the windows built into the door and saw what looked like a man in a grey suit with a fedora obscuring the top half of his face waiting for her.

Okay, nothing TOO nonhuman at first glance.

Opening the door just a crack so that, if she needed to, she could slam it shut and lock it, she looked out at the man who turned to face her but still didn't raise his head enough so she could see all of his face.

"Yes?" she asked, hoping that the man would choose to look her in the eye so she could see his entire face.

"Missus Summers? Joyce Summers?" the man asked as if to confirm her identity.

This didn't bode well because usually the only people who did that were in law enforcement or some other vocation where it was a bad idea to make a mistake.

"That's right. What do you want?" she asked, trying not to sound impolite but at the same time prompt the man to get to the point of why he was at her door at this time of night.

"Oh, nothing much," the man replied as he raised his head to let her look him right in the eyes. "I just wanted to see what the mother of the local Slayer looked like."

She wanted to slam the door shut. She wanted to lock it, run for the phone and call for help.

But she couldn't.

She could only see the star-filled eyes of the man in front of her before consciousness was ripped from her mind, leaving only darkness.

Darkness and fear that she might never wake again.

Residential Area, Sunnydale, Revelo Drive

Buffy's POV

"Well, that was the awesome that really wasn't." Xander griped as he walked her home.

"No kidding," she said offhand since it didn't really matter to her. "You'd think destroying a mojo glove that can let someone toss lightning would be flashier when it got destroyed."

"Guess it just goes to show you that Hollywood's love of overkill has seriously desensitized us." he said, sounding like he was accepting a new fact of reality. "Maybe the next one'll be flashier."

"Do you even know what 'desensitized' means?" she asked offhand, never having heard him use a word like that before.

Willow or Giles? Yeah. Xander? No.

"Heard my sociology teacher say it once," he replied, recalling the moment. "I think it means violence and stuff doesn't bother me much anymore. Like the world needs to raise its game to the next level if it wants to freak me out."

"Huh," she said as she contemplated that. "Guess it's really going to have to work for it to get me freaked out because I've seen and slayed some seriously freaksome stuff since I got Called."

Wasn't that an understatement!

In the last three years since she'd been Called, she'd fought everything from fresh from the grave vamps to demons capable of treating heavy tombstones like Frisbees. Magic hadn't been a big thing for the most part, except for a few rare cases, but it'd still taught her a valuable lesson: if you don't know what the magical thingy does, DON'T touch it. Just tell Giles about it and let him deal with it. The only time that rule went out the window was if there wasn't time to get answers from her Watcher. Usually when that happened she either smashed the magical thingy or used the reactions of the demons to figure out if she was doing something that'd help their plans or screw them up.

Usually it worked.

When it didn't… she was VERY glad that she could sprint faster than Olympic athletes.

As they turned the corner onto her street, though, she got another very good reason to be thankful that she could run really fast: the door to her house was open and she could see a large dagger sticking out of it. Not even bothering to say anything to Xander, she ran as quickly as she could for her home, fear gripping her heart, hoping to find her mother unharmed.

"MOM! MOM ARE YOU HERE!?" she asked the second she was through the door.

Hearing nothing, she immediately began a hectic search of the house, starting with the living room before moving onto the dining room and then going upstairs. No matter where she looked, though, she couldn't find her mother or even a clue about where she could be. This did NOT do good things for her state of mind as she walked down the stairs to find Xander looking at the dagger that'd been stabbed into the front door. It was then she noticed that the dagger wasn't by its lonesome: there was a piece of paper pinned to the door by it.

Someone had something to say.

This could either be very helpful or very bad.

"What does it say?" she asked, almost wishing she'd kept her mouth shut.

"'Slayer Summers. No doubt at the moment you are wondering where your mother is and who I am so you can rescue her while pummeling me into another incarnation. However I am in control now, Slayer, not you. Therefore you will have to be happy with the answers I choose to give you.'" Xander said as he read the message word for word. "'Your mother is alive and currently in my care. She will remain so as long as you do precisely as I instruct. It is my intention to become supreme ruler of Sunnydale but in order to do that I need my competition weakened. THAT is where you come in.'"

Her mother was leverage to make her help someone become the kingpin of the Hellmouth? She was SO asking Angel for some Angelus pointers in the area of torture because just killing the bastard wasn't payback enough for involving her mother in this.

She'd make it clear to anyone living in or thinking of moving to Sunnydale that Joyce Summers was OFF LIMITS!

"'Listed at the bottom of this piece of paper are the names and current addresses of the major powers in Sunnydale's demonic community. You will attack them, ALL of them, before the sun rises and eliminate all you encounter at those addresses. I'm not particularly picky about the method so long as they cease to be anything resembling a threat.'" Xander said with growing anger as he read the message. "'Do this and your mother shall be returned to you alive and unharmed. Fail and… I think you can fill in the blanks. I await news of your glorious victories. Signed Elias Hargreave.'"

"Gee, this guy doesn't ask for much, does he?!" she asked rhetorically both with anger as well as sarcasm.

"We gotta bring in Giles on this, pronto," Xander said as he pulled the dagger out of the door and separated it from the piece of paper. "Maybe he knows who this guy is and can help us turn the tables on the asshole."

"Right! And since time is running out we're getting to the library as quick as we can," she said as she walked over to the table by the door and grabbed the keys to her mother's car.

"Um… how many driving lessons have you taken?" Xander asked, sounding like he was a minute away from saying he'd walk.

"I got us through town easy enough during the whole cursed candy thing last week. Now GET in the DAMN CAR!" she growled in a way that made it clear wasting her time would only piss her off.

"Yes ma'am!" Xander said, saluting her on reflex and then he made for the parked car in the driveway.

She shoved any surprise and curiosity that might've brought out in her aside as she ran over to the driver's side door, opened it and then got inside. Right then she just slapped a 'leftover from last year's Halloween' sticker on it and called it good. Turning the key, she waited only until she was sure the engine had turned over before shifting the car into reverse and peeling out of the drive way. Shifting into drive as soon as she could, she went as quickly as she could down the street, using the walking route she usually took to get to the high school as a guide.

"Um… Buffy? You might want to keep it below the speed limit," Xander said, looking a little pale. "It'll only take longer to get to the school if we get pulled over for speeding."

Gritting her teeth, she reluctantly complied bringing the vehicle's speed below the speed limit since she was in no mood to get pulled over, not when she had better things to do then deal with the ignorant idiots that were supposed to be doing HER job.

Thinking about the list she'd been handed by her mother's kidnapper, she had an epiphany that made her smile internally. Hard Grief had given her a list of rivals to kill but in doing so he'd also pointed her in the direction of monsters that'd know more about him. While she knew that a lot of them would be stupid, maintaining their empires through brute force alone, some of them would have two brain cells to rub together and remain informed on possible threats. She would do whatever it took to get them to tell her everything so, as soon as her mother was safe, she'd use that information to hunt the bastard down and take him down HARD.

The asshole was giving her the gun she'd shoot him with.

And she'd enjoy every moment of it.

Warehouse District, MacKenzie Factory, Elias Hargreave's POV

"Yes… yes… good," Mayor Wilkins said as he spoke with someone over his phone. "Continue surveillance but be sure to remain undetected. I will be most put out if she realizes she's being monitored."

With that the phone call was over but he didn't really mind one way or another.

As long as he got paid for his services that was all that mattered.

Still, he had to admit it'd been a long while since he'd last been hired to deal with a Slayer or perform a spell of such originality. True, piercing the veil between dimensions was nothing new but opening one to a dimension never before visited and only had a piece of delivered to them by chance… it'd be quite a feather in his cap. Perhaps enough to allow him to increase his hiring rates by a measurable amount. Still, it would be best not to get too careless. He'd read the briefing information his employer had given on the Slayer and it as somewhat noteworthy in that she'd successfully slain Lothos, the Master of the Aurelian clan of vampires and thwarted Angelus. Not too shabby for someone who'd only been Called three years prior. Still, he was confident that the plan he'd conceived would take care of her allies, ensuring that the girl would arrive in the final room by herself. After that all that would be needed would be to cast a binding spell on Summers strong enough to last until he completed the ritual to banish her from this dimension.

At least she wouldn't be going alone, he thought with a sadistic smile on her face. Her mother will be going with her as she'll be in the center of the banishment circle.

Indeed he'd known from the beginning that getting her into the circle would be hard unless the proper bait lay within it. All he needed to do was make sure that the completion of the ritual was timed to perfectly coincide with the Slayer's efforts to remove her mother's restraints and it'd all work out perfectly.

"Well, it's all working out just as I planned, Mister Hargreave," Mayor Wilkins said, turning to speak with him. "She found your rather flamboyant message and is on her way to her Watcher as we speak. It'll only be a matter of time before she begins to go through the list I gave you."

"How far do you think she'll get before she finds her way here?" he asked out of idle curiosity even as his immediate subordinates continued preparing the gauntlet that would keep the Slayer's allies busy but not stop her.

"Two hours. Maybe three," Wilkins replied after a moment's consideration. "She's smarter than she lets others believe but won't let it show. Her mother being in danger might be enough to make her drop her 'I am just a normal girl' performance enough to let her intellect shine through. Still, those on the list won't be able to tell her much and it'll take her at least two hours to collect enough clues to discover this location."

"Good. That will be plenty of time for my minions to finish preparations and get into position," he said after doing some quick calculating, using past jobs as references.

"It's truly refreshing to see a warlock who takes his job seriously, Mister Hargreave." Wilkins said with a happy smile on his face. "I can see your reputation was not exaggerated. I expect that the results will be the same as they were for all your previous assignments."

"Don't worry, Mayor Wilkins," he said in a reassuring manner. "I have orchestrated coups in third world nations, neutralized defenses allowing my employers to attain vengeance against a hated foe and rewrote the mind of a young lady to make her exactly the sort of woman my client wanted her to be. Tricking one Slayer into position so I can banish her from this dimension will NOT be a problem."

"Make sure that it isn't for, if she manages to get away with her mother, I will consider it a breach of contract." Mayor Wilkins said in a tone that chilled even him. "I trust you know the consequences of such a breach when it comes to magical contracts such as ours."

Indeed he did.

It was an agreement that was common amongst those who knew the truth of the world and possessed either power or influence enough to warrant such a strong 'agreement'. The consequences Wilkins spoke of varied from contract to contract but in this particular case a breach of contract by him would result in the complete forfeiture of five of his more valuable assets. While not enough to affect his standing in the arcane community, the items he would lose would be more than a little bothersome to be without. All of them had taken no small amount of effort to acquire and would not be easy to replace even with the arcane methods he'd been using to extend his lifespan beyond the human norm. Therefore he resolved to put a little more effort into ensuring that everything would unfold precisely as Mayor Wilkins had mandated during their discussion of the terms of his contract.

"I have never failed to successfully fulfill a contract in the past, Mayor Wilkins, and I have no intention of starting now."

"Good. I will leave you to your work," Mayor Wilkins said before turning around and walking towards the door of the building, his vampire bodyguards forming up around him.

Normally he would not be intimidated by four vampires, as his magical abilities were easily up to the task of dusting the walking corpses, but these four were members of an elite group. The Order of the Fang, to be precise, and their warriors were known to have killed quite a few demon hunters and Slayers since their founding two millennia ago. They were not only formidable fighters, trained in a variety of styles and weapons, but they also possessed the ability to consciously sacrifice bits of their human side to get closer to the pure demon whom had created their kind. However, to his knowledge, no member of their Order to date had managed to get closer than thirty-three percent before their bodies crumbled into dust. Nevertheless, those that knew how to take themselves right to the edge without falling over it were not to be trifled with and he believed Wilkins influential enough to gain four of the Order's better warriors.

He would not do something foolish like engage them in battle on a whim.

Turning to his minions, he began to take direct control of their activities, reviewing it every step of the way in order to ensure there existed not even the slightest mistake. While each of his subordinates were competent enough thanks to his careful tutelage, he was still in the process of determining which of them would best suit the role of his apprentice. Every mage needed a worthy right hand and, if worse came to worse, with the Fates choosing to remove him from existence, he would need someone to carry on in his name. Even with all the arcane knowledge that existed in the world, true immortality, in its purest form, had yet to be achieved. Many demon breeds and skilled magic users had come close but in his opinion they cheated rather than succeeded. Vampires needed regular infusions of blood in order to continue living. Warlocks often grafted demonic attributes onto themselves in order to achieve a longer lifespan. No one had managed to achieve the kind of immortality that required no fuel and made it impossible for anything short of a deity to terminate.

However it was on his list of things he'd like to achieve before the Grim Reaper came calling.

If Wilkins had proved anything to him with what he'd seen fit to reveal, it was that the long shots were indeed possible to achieve.

It wasn't like he had anything else to do in between clients.

Sunnydale High School, Library

Xander's POV

"So what're the assignments?" he asked as he looked at the assortment of weapons he had to choose from.

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked him from her position next to Giles.

"Well, as much fun as it'd be to just kick the doors in and go nuts, I'm thinking we're going to need a better plan than what Larry and his Cro-Mag pals would consider smart," he replied, deciding on one of the larger axes before tucking one of the small tomahawks beneath his belt. "That means having a strategy with each of us playing a role in making sure we all come out of this with minimal bruising."

"YOU'RE not coming," Buffy declared in her usual 'my word is law so say me GOD' tone of voice. "None of you are. You're all staying here digging up info while I go exercise my right to kick ass and get some answers."

"At the risk of having you bite my head off, Buffy,are you sure it's wise to go alone?" Giles asked, sounding like he was mentally bracing himself for Buffy's incoming outburst. "I recognize some of the names on the list from the Council's monthly intelligence reports. While not quite as formidable as the Master or Angelus on their own or in terms of the forces at their command… you may be biting off more than you can chew facing them by yourself."

"You've never seen me go all out with a vengeance, Giles," Buffy said in a chilly tone that had him reflexively rubbing his bare arms to warm them up. "I'm a nuclear reactor that's heating up and I'm gonna go Chernobyl on their asses!"

Oddly enough, while he still thought that Buffy should let them come along as combat support, he had to admit he was interested in seeing Buffy go all Leeloo on their asses. While seeing Buff' kick vamp ass was always entertaining to watch, he never got the feeling that she'd ever went all out all that often. He didn't get to see her fight against the Master and he'd missed out on the closing minutes of her fight against evil Deadboy, but he assumed with baddies like them she'd gone all out. As such he was seriously interested in seeing the sort of carnage she could unleash on unsuspecting baddies.

Still, the soldier remnants in him made it clear that it didn't matter how skilled a soldier was, they could still be brought down if overwhelmed by superior numbers. To him that meant that there was only one acceptable option for him.

"All that means is that they'll be focusing most of their attention on you instead of us," he said, internally debating for a moment before taking a sheathed dagger from the weapons locker and strapping it on. "Gives us room to take'em by surprise and a little off the top."

"You're not going and THAT is THAT!" Buffy said before storming out the doors with the weapons she'd selected before him, causing the library doors to swing violently.

Looking in the direction the blonde Slayer had gone, he had to shake his head at her bullheadedness.

"She don' know us vewy well, DO she?" he asked rhetorically in his best Bugs Bunny impersonation.

Looking at the remaining weapons in the locker, he decided that he had enough dark ages murder-death-kill tools on him and it was time to slip by his house to pick up something a little more current. Patting his back pocket to confirm that his copy of the addresses for the people on the list was still there, he began to stride for the door.

"Xander? Where are you going?" Willow asked, stopping him in his tracks.

He knew he couldn't lie to her because, after so many years of friendship, she knew his tells too well and would spot a falsehood in less than a second. So he decided to give her just enough of the truth to make her back off without giving away the full scope of what he had planned.

"Just spinning by my house to pick up a few things," he replied, not turning around in case he accidentally gave away the fact that he was omitting a few things. "Just some odds and ends Oz helped me get when we raided the army base."

"While I am not so foolish so as to say that modern weaponry is useless against demons given how the rocket launcher faired against the Judge, I must question the wisdom of using them in this case." Giles said with a pause that made him think the Brit was cleaning his glasses. "The confusion and general oddness of the battle at the mall might have saved us from legal reprisals but, given the areas the targets have made their homes, the police will come to investigate gunshots and… ahem… explosions."

He had to roll his eyes at that even as he conceded that the police might actually get off their donut-eating asses to investigate since gunshots and booms didn't usually equal demons.

"Don't worry," he said, not quite willing to give up just yet. "Most of what I've got have silencers and I promise I won't use the heavy artillery unless I absolutely have to."

"Very well," Giles said, sensing probably that further arguing would be useless. "Just do try to conceal them somewhat. I would rather not find out later that you had been arrested for illegal arms possession."

"Will do," he said as he exited the library even as he gave the last warning half the weight the Brit probably thought it needed.

If there was one thing that he had come to count on in Sunnydale, it was that the people tended to rationalize away anything odd or unusual. If anyone saw him they'd probably just assume they were fakes or props or toys and then just go on their merry way. After all, with companies pushing for more and more realism in their products, it wouldn't be impossible for one of their items to appear at first glance to be identical to the real thing. Even if they weren't able to come up with a good excuse, they'd probably forget what they saw inside of an hour.

In the event that someone did call the cops on him, it wouldn't matter much. He'd already planned out five different hiding spots for his ill-gotten gains if keeping them at home became too risky. So long as he made sure to squirrel them away before the cops slapped the cuffs on him, all they'd have would be witness statements and no evidence. Enough, perhaps, to hold him for a while but, unless the S.P.D. were even more sleazy than Stein made them out to be, they'd eventually let him go.

Moving through the streets of Sunnydale, he began to consider other options for resolving the current problem and rescuing Missus S. If the guy thought he was big enough to make a play for the throne of Sunnydale, he had to have made waves elsewhere in the world. After all, if he was just a lunatic thinking that the universe would bow to his desires, he'd have been squashed long before coming to Sunnydale. That meant that maybe a trip past Willy's might be a good idea since that impotent little weasel always kept his ear to the ground for info to sell to the highest bidder. A part of him was sickened that any human would willingly do business with demons but the more practical part of his mind conceded that even rats served a purpose. If he could keep demons and vamps off the street while also providing the occasional bit of useful intel, then he GUESSED that he could cut Willy some slack.

It didn't mean that he wouldn't use 'painful persuasion' on the slimeball if he has cause, though.

Fifteen minutes later he was outside his house and, judging from the number of lights on, he figured it was safe to say that Tony was asleep along with his mom, so that was one thing in his favor. Quietly slipping through the door he crept quietly, using years of experience, to the basement door and made his way down the stairs while avoiding places he knew would produce a squeak. While he could've stashed them in his room, he knew Tony randomly looked there for things he could hock for cash at the local thrift store. The basement, however, was a place the drunk rarely went unless he absolutely had to and the rest of the time just ordered his 'dear wife' to go down. Fortunately his mother had an aversion to bugs, rats and a variety of other things, so she didn't stray any further from the stairs than she absolutely had to.

So it was about as safe a place to hide as any inside his home.

Moving over to a pile of empty paint cans and trash bags, he pushed them aside to reveal the stash he'd BORROWED from the local army base.

First I'm gonna need something with a lot of range, he thought as he looked through his selection. I might be able to handle your average fledgling no problem but no way can I survive a serious brawl with three or more. Better to even the odds from a distance.

To him that meant the M21. He would have loved something a little more up to date but, sadly, this was from a lower-end armory, not a Special Forces base. It would do, especially since he'd been lucky enough to snag one of the pricier looking scopes, but it was heavy. Coupled with the heavier rounds that he had paired with the five magazines that had been in the locker, he figured he could probably thin the ranks of most of Buffy's targets before either running dry or being forced to switch to a medium range weapon.

For that he figured the tried and true M-16A2. It would work fine with its thirty round magazine, of which he had four, and he had even managed to score an under-barrel grenade launcher. There may have been some quiet squealing, but it was manly squealing and anyone who said otherwise was a dirty, rotten liar. It would be a decent choice for small groups of demons with its burst fire abilities but he would try and keep it to semi-automatic if at all possible.

If the demons proved too fast for him, that was what the grenade launcher was for and he had ammo enough for six shots lying before him, five of which were normal Hi-Ex rounds. The sixth one worried the hell out of him. White Phosphorus, Willy Pete, was a stone bitch to work with under the best of circumstances. That one he had marked with yellow and white and would save it for last, in case everything went to hell and he had to get danger close with Buffy.

Finally, if worse came to worse and the enemy got to within close quarters, he needed something that packed a punch and to him that meant a shotgun. He'd tried to find something automatic to work with, so that he could fire just as quickly as he could pull the trigger, but he had come up dry. Worse than that, Mickey Mouse on his wrist said that the guard shift would be coming by soon so, as beggars could not be choosers, he went with the Mossberg pump-action that they had there that someone had been playing around with because it has a pistol grip instead of a shoulder stock. This sucked because it meant he couldn't steady it as one should, which was not the ideal choice as demons and vampires moved quickly, and really couldn't use it as a club if it came down to it. He would have to be extra careful when he was reloading and working the pump.

Add to all that a stun gun and he figured he'd be ready for just about anything.

He just hoped that they weren't too late already.

MacKenzie Factory, Unclean Room

Joyce's POV

What is going on?

It was a question she'd been asking ever since she'd regained consciousness in this room that, to her eyes, looked to be a factory storage room. It wasn't the cleanest and she was pretty sure she'd seen a cockroach skitter between two of the boxes, but it wasn't like there was much she could do about that. After all, with her legs and arms tied securely with rope, she wasn't able to do much more than wiggle away from it and hope she wasn't wiggling toward something even worse. She hadn't seen anyone since she'd woken up but she'd heard people talking as well as moving around so she'd tried to get their attention by yelling through the door.

It didn't work.

So she did her best to move over so she could use her feet to kick the door in the hopes that that would force whoever was on the other side to at least speak to her, if not open the door so she could get a good look at them.

That didn't work either.

So for the last hour she'd been trying to figure out what was going on and what options she had because there was a very good reason why she couldn't just lay here patiently to be rescued.

These… people… were obviously after her daughter and were using her as bait.

Now she wanted to have confidence that her daughter and her friends could handle themselves but, with her reflexively avoiding seeing her daughter fight or even train, her imagination had other ideas. What if these people were stronger than Buffy? What if they were smarter than Mister Giles? What if they outnumbered her daughter and her friends? Each of these questions went through her mind and her imagination provided her with a plethora of scenarios where each of them played out ending with her daughter seriously hurt or dead.

Unwilling to risk her daughter's life she was forcing herself to work past her fear and think up ways she could get free and escape.

Unfortunately the life of a single mother and art gallery owner didn't exactly give her the skill set for freeing herself from ropes, picking locks or getting out of a building she knew nothing about unseen. All of those things she'd only seen in movies or television shows, neither of which went into great detail, so they could hardly be called effective instructional tools. Still, she was determined not to let that get her down and so she continued to look for something, ANYTHING, that could be used to cut the ropes. Once she was free to move around she could begin looking for a way to open the door or otherwise escape from the room into the building.

Minutes passed as she looked everywhere she could but eventually her diligence was rewarded when she came upon a damaged can that had a gash going from top to bottom on one side that looked like it might be what she needed. It was disgusting what she was feeling her skin come into contact with as she wriggled over to it until she could grab it with her hands but there'd be time enough for a bath later. Tentatively she felt around the gash, being careful not to cut herself, and once she had a mental picture of it she began to move her arms so that the ropes were pressed against the metal. Back and forth, back and forth, she moved the ropes in an effort to cut them, only minimally being aware of any progress she was making. She suppressed the frustration and anxiety she was beginning to feel since neither emotion had done her any good in the past but it wasn't easy when you had no idea how much time you had left before someone came.

It all evaporated minutes later when, without warning, the ropes around her wrists went slack and, after bringing her hands in front of her, she smiled at their newly regained freedom. With them no longer bound it didn't take her long to untie her legs, allowing her to finally stand up for the first time since she'd woken up. Looking down at her clothes, she could see a few stains and smudges but not enough to consider either her skirt or her shirt a complete write off.

Plus, after dealing with Buffy's clothes for the last three years, she'd gotten the hang of getting unidentifiable stains out of clothing, so it wouldn't be too hard.

Going over to the door she tested the doorknob but with disappointment found it to be locked and not budging more than a few millimeters either way. Crouching down, she looked at the keyhole and, after a moment's consideration, she pulled one of the hairpins from the top of her head before tweaking it a bit and inserting. She knew that in principle the locked worked via a series of pins that needed to be manipulated just right before the mechanism could be turned, unlocking the door. If detecting progress in cutting ropes was difficult then knowing whether or not she was successfully manipulating the pins was near impossible. Still she kept at it, waiting until she was ready before trying her first turn only for the lock not to budge. Pulling the hairpin out, she went over what she'd done on the first attempt and altered it at random since she had no way of knowing how to improve her odds. Inserting the hairpin again she followed her new approach, sweating a little bit as the tension began to rise a bit in her.

C'mon, c'mon! Please work!

When her hairpin reached the end she said a quick prayer and twisted clockwise.

CLICK!

"YES!" she exclaimed in triumph at the fruits of her efforts.

Unfortunately her feeling of triumph turned shock and fear as the door opened not by her hand but by the hand of someone else. The someone else was revealed to be a man in a black suit but, when her gaze reached his face, the bulging forehead and mouth full of fangs told her the truth: it wasn't a man but a vampire. With a growl it grabbed her by the upper arm, pulled her to her feet and then yanked her out of the room into the hallway.

Fear swarmed around her as she was led down the hallway, keeping her from doing anything but stay on her feet. Was she going to be punished for trying to escape? What had the vampire originally come to her cell for? There was simply too much she didn't know and, unlike with running a business, a wrong choice could turn out to be quite fatal indeed. Whether by choice or by instinct she neither said nor did anything until she had more information to work with.

"Ah! Missus Summers!" a man said as they reached their destination. "I trust you had a relaxing rest?"

It took her less than a second for her to recognize the male voice as the one who'd knocked on her front door who knew how long ago before, somehow rendering her unconscious. With a sharp turn of her head that might've given her whiplash she looked towards the source of the voice to see the culprit giving the man her best furious glare.

"Yes, I did, though I think you should fire the cleaning staff," she replied in a sharp tone of voice. "I've seen dumpsters that were cleaner."

"I quite agree but unfortunately my employer put me on a rather strict timetable so I was forced to prioritize where to direct the majority of my efforts," the man said with a smile that was far from genuine. "Put her in the center and chain her there."

In response to this the vampire that'd brought her to the room resumed manhandling her across to the center of the room where someone had drawn a circle straight out of an occult horror film. In the center of the pentagram someone had bolted some rather thick looking chains into the concrete floor and, as she found a few seconds later, old fashioned looking manacles were at the other end. With jerking, harsh movements, the manacles were secured to her wrists before being locked in place and then she was left to stand alone as the vampire walked off, leaving the room soon after. Reflexively she tested the chains for strength and then tried to squeeze her hands out of the manacles but there just wasn't enough room to do so. She even doubted that the movie trick of dislocating or breaking her own thumb would allow her to free herself.

"I wouldn't bother trying to free yourself at this point, Missus Summers," the man said with casualness that just didn't belong in the present situation. "The manacles are enchanted to change their size to whatever size is needed in order to ensure the one they bind cannot escape. Also, the chains are strong enough that I'd wager even your daughter would have time breaking them."

"Then why don't you do the cliché thing and give me the whole monologue about why you're doing this?" she said, deciding that taking a page out of her daughter's playbook might help.

"I suppose there are traditions that must be followed," the man said, taking only a moment to think it over. "Understand, though, that due to certain contractual obligations I won't be able to tell you everything. The basics are that my current employer is starting a very busy year and can't afford to be thwarted at such a crucial stage. Your daughter has made something of a reputation for interfering with the plans of my colleagues, so it has been decided that she must be removed from play sooner rather than later."

"You're going to kill her!?" she exclaimed in both fear and rage.

"Personally? No," the man said before picking up a book from a nearby table. "I'm merely going to banish her from this dimension. Whether or not she dies will depend entirely on just how dangerous her new home turns out to be. If it is anything like some of the hell dimensions I am aware of, she'll be lucky if she survives a minute. However there is a chance she'll arrive someplace capable of supporting human life without too much risk, so it's possible she'll get to live out the normal human lifespan."

Neither possibility appealed to her at all since, in either case, it'd lead to her being separated from her daughter forever.

"Still, I'm sure between the two of you something can be managed," the man said as he began flipping through the book.

"'The two of you'?" she asked even as understanding dawned on her.

"Oh? Didn't I mention it?" the man asked, like someone who'd forgotten to pass on a phone message. "You'll be going with her. The arcane circle you're standing in will banish the both of you from this dimension. I might be a mage for hire but even I'm not cruel enough to separate a mother from her daughter. I have some ethics, after all."

There was only one thing she could say to all that.

"Oh."

Demon Lair, Buffy's POV

"Now, normally I'd keep things brief and be on my way but you STILL haven't told me what I WANT to HEAR!" she said, breaking an intact bone with every emphasized word.

"ARGH! I-I'm tellin' ya the truth, Slayer!" the ape-faced demon said, laying battered on the floor. "Hargreave's a warlock for hire but I didn't hire him!"

"Then WHO did?" she asked before stomping on one of the demon's few intact bones.

"I dunno! I dunno!" the demon exclaimed in obvious pain. "But whoever did must be loaded because Hargreave doesn't work cheap! You could buy a fleet of ships with what he charges!"

"And you've got nothing else to tell me?" she asked, making it clear that the pain level would go up if she caught him withholding anything from her.

"That's all I know! Please…stop…" the demon said with what little strength it had left.

"Fine," she sighed with disappointment before bringing her foot down on the demons head, crushing it and thereby killing the unnatural creature.

Well this was the fourth target on the list she'd visited and she had only learned three things about the man who'd taken her mother hostage. The first was that he was a warlock for hire, the second was that whoever'd hired him was rich and lastly he normally kept to the big cities and avoided towns like Sunnydale. It made sense since the sort of people wealthy enough to hire him stuck to places like Los Angeles and New York City. However that did little to tell her where her mother was being held and only marginally reduced the number of people in Sunnydale who could've hired Hargreave.

Walking out of the building into the night, she checked her watch to find that it'd been three hours since she'd begun her rampage through the list. Now she only had five more hours before the sun rose and she still had six more to go. Taking the piece of paper with the addresses out of her pocket, she used a pen she'd brought with her to cross off another name before looking at the next one and where she could find it/him/her. Using her knowledge of Sunnydale's layout, she began to run towards her next target all the while hoping that the demon that had the audacity to call itself 'Babe' had more useful information than the last four. If she wanted to turn the tables on Hargreave, she needed to find out where he was and she needed to find out BEFORE time became so valuable that her only option for getting her mother back was complying with the mercenary warlock.

She'd contemplated spinning by Willy's to see what the cockroach had to say but decided not too since the man had Jello for a spine and could be made to say anything for the right price. Considering the fact that Hargreave was a well-paid mercenary, it wasn't out of the question that the asshole might've paid Willy VERY well to lie to her. True, money meant little when you were being physically worked over by a very pissed and brutal Slayer but, depending on the amount, it might be enough to buy quite a bit of obedience from Willy.

Obedience that would take quite a bit of time to beat out of him, along with the information she wanted.

Time she didn't have.

Sadly Willy was really the only source she knew of in Sunnydale, with the rest being known only to Giles, so that meant beating the facts out of the people on the list.

Still, at least I'm not alone in all this, she thought as she reached out with her Slayer senses to pick up on her 'shadow'. I'm still going to get him to toss out all those guns when this is all over with. I HATE guns!

She couldn't argue with how helpful they'd been in keeping the minions of her targets off guard with what she figured had to be a rifle of some kind. Not every shot hit but the sheer randomness between hits and misses only helped with the fear that kept the less confident among them behind cover.

Not that it helped them as a few times Xander must've guessed right about where their heads were when he opened fire and succeeded in hitting his mark.

Between her own skill as the Slayer and his covering fire, the battles at the last four locations had been easier than they probably otherwise would've been. When she'd stormed out of the library she'd been all set to take on her enemies by herself but now she realized that that… maybe… would not have been the wisest thing to do. The minions she'd fought were a lot more organized than most of the demons and vampires she'd fought so far on the Hellmouth. The ones under the Master and Angelus might've been able to take basic orders but complex strategies were just a little over their heads.

She ignored the voice in her mind that pointed out that she wasn't exactly a strategic genius herself.

She preferred the direct approach to most problems and would leave the complex thinking to Giles and Willow and, maybe as a last resort, Xander.

Sure, the soldiery stuff he picked up from Halloween last year had come in real handy with the Judge and the marksmanship he was showing tonight was impressive but she'd yet to hear him say anything to make her believe that he was more tactical than your average teenage guy.

She was about halfway to the location of her next target when she came upon something that had her screech to a halt. Stumbling down the street with the biggest wine bottle she'd ever seen in its hand was a vampire that looked to be almost too drunk to walk. She still wasn't quite sure how a vampire could get drunk considering it was undead and all but she'd come across enough vamps that she'd confirmed hadn't been faking to know they could. However it wasn't the fact that a drunk vamp was tottering down the street that had caused her to come to a complete halt but rather what the intoxicated vampire was babbling about.

"S-s-stupid Dave… kickin' me out of m-my lair… just to… to… kiss up to that warlock asshole…" the vampire slurred before temporarily losing its balance, then regaining it, albeit tentatively. "…s-stupid prick… d-d-d-doesn't realize they're just… using him… *hiccup*… that Hargreave asshole's just… lookin' for… cannon fodder… *hiccup*…"

An instant after hearing her mother's kidnapper mentioned she crossed the distance between her and the vampire, grabbing him by his jacket and slamming him into the nearby telephone pole.

"Where is he? Where is Hargreave!?" she asked angrily, making it clear that a lucid answer would be in the vamp's best interests.

"Ow! That hurt ya know!" the vampire whined before really looking at her. "Huh… you look… really f-f-f-familiar…"

"I'm Buffy the vampire slayer but since you're a vamp just call me the Slayer," she said, introducing herself, hoping that her reputation would at least partially sober him up so she could get some answers.

Watching the expressions shift on the vampire's face, she could tell that his undead brain wasn't quite firing on all cylinders but was still managing to work its way from A to B to C before landing at D. She knew the precise moment when the vamp finally realized just how much trouble he was in when a look of utter fear blossomed on his face.

She also was convinced that he was frightened when she looked down in response to a foul smell to realize that the vamp had pissed himself.

EW! They weren't even supposed to be able to DO that!

"They're in Old Mackenzie Factory! Corner of State and Crawford!" the vampire exclaimed out loud, fear in every word. "It's the truth! I swear!"

"I believe you," she said before plunging her recently palmed stake into the fiend's heart, dusting him.

Normally she believed that when someone helped you, you should return the favor, but in this case it was a vamp and letting him go would only be putting others in mortal danger. Thus the only right course of action was to stake the vamp, putting it out of its obvious misery and preventing it from preying upon the innocent citizens of Sunnydale. Besides, she was fairly sure that Xander would've shot and staked the vamp before it got too far away anyways, but that would've been followed by him getting on her case about letting it walk away free.

No mercy for vampires from that guy.

With that matter handled she broke into a sprint for the factory the vamp had mentioned, wanting to get there before news somehow got back to the warlock Hargreave that he'd been ratted out. Given how loudly the vampire had told her where her mom was, she was pretty sure Xander would be right behind her but, since he couldn't run at Slayer speed, it'd take him longer to get there. A part of her thought about waiting until he caught up with her so that they could go in together but the part of her that wanted to rescue her mother won out. Her mother's life was at stake! She couldn't wait.

So focused was her mind that objects in her way weren't even identified and any pedestrians that might've been out were ignored. She simply navigated around, below or over them depending on what her instincts told her would cost her the least amount of time. To her it didn't matter if people saw her doing superhuman things because, if her mother wound up being killed because she was breaking from Hargreave's rules, nothing else would matter.

She would rescue her mother and tear apart the warlock who took her!

This she VOWED!

The Streets of Sunnydale, Xander's POV

Dammit! He ran as quickly as he could in the direction of the Mackenzie Factory. You'd think she would've learned by now that running off halfcocked is a good way to wind up hip deep in trouble!

Still, if was Willow being held captive he doubted that he'd have done any differently without someone giving me a serious reality check, so he could understand the Slayer. It didn't make him fear for his friend any less so he increased his pace as best he could despite the weight of the weapons strapped to or hanging from his body. He ignored the strange looks that the few people who were out were giving him as he passed them and instead focused on the mental map of Sunnydale he had in his head. Being one of the school outcasts, there'd been numerous times when he'd had to run from bullies and, considering he could bump into them anywhere, he knew of every escape route in Sunnydale. Using them as a guide, he could cut through to the factory in less time than if he used the streets and sidewalks.

Too bad some other type of demon had the same idea and, judging by its sharp teeth, it most definitely was not a plant eater. Seeing it raise its clawed appendages in obvious preparation to grab him, his hands acted on reflex, bringing the shotgun to bear before pulling the trigger. The shots boomed out of the barrel one after another at the demon, with only a slight pause as he pumped, and the lack of a stock made him have to focus on his aim. Every shot that hit gouged out a piece of the demon's flesh while pushing it back one to two steps and, by the time it ran dry the demon was on the ground either dead or too injured to move right away. Sprinting past it, he continued on his way to the factory, arriving in just a little over fifteen minutes but, judging by the broken door, Buffy was already inside.

The sounds of things breaking and baddies crying out in pain also confirmed that the Slayer was doing her thing inside.

Given that it was going to be close quarters inside the building, he reloaded the shotgun and prepared it for use. Calling on as much of the soldier as he had left inside of him, he entered the building, making sure to check all the corners before proceeding further. It didn't take him long to find the room Buffy was fighting in but, rather than just going right in, he flattened himself to the wall to the left of the doorway and peeked inside. The opposition was mostly vampires, along with some fiercer looking demons, but despite being outnumbered Buffy was still managing to march towards victory. Still, they were delaying her and that could be what the warlock needed to harm Joyce, so he decided to take tactical advantage of the Slayer's ass kicking to look around. Slinking past the door, he proceeded deeper into the factory, always peeking around corners from safety before going around them since he had no desire to literally run into unnecessary trouble.

When it came to doors he passed along the way, he tested the knobs first to see if they were even locked and, if they were, a kick was thrown and, if THAT didn't work, single shot from his shotgun fixed that problem, letting him look inside. If it turned out that they weren't locked he just quietly opened them up before peeking inside. Most of them were empty, though, and the few of them that were occupied by vamps or demons got to have the special feeling of seeing a grenade tossed inside and the door slammed shut. It played merry hell with his hearing and once or twice it'd been a close call getting the door shut, but it worked. It wasn't until he reached what had to be the far side of the factory that he saw an indicator that he'd managed to find where they were holding Joyce. Standing guard in front of a door were two vamps wearing suits but, for some reason, his instincts were telling him that they weren't your standard bloodsuckers. Instead he got the impression that it might be in his best interests to wait until Buffy finished up with the lesser threats and teamed up with him.

The universe, in its infinite dickery and partially to his own stupidity, decided to take the choice from him.

Almost as one the vamps sniffed the air and they looked right at him, so he knew he'd been made. He could've run for it since he had the feeling that the duo wouldn't abandon their posts just for one guy like him but, with Joyce so close, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Charging around the corner with his shotgun brought to bear, he pulled the trigger, hoping to take them down before they could show him empirically just how different they were from their commonplace cousins.

Too bad that they proved themselves different from the usual vamps he dealt with by moving at a speed that made it extremely difficult for him to get a bead on them. In fact, he was pretty sure that they'd get to him before he managed to land a debilitating shot against them, so he decided to use their speed to his advantage.

He dropped the shotgun on its sling and plucked a grenade off the belt he'd hooked it on, pulling the pin and casually rolling it in the direction of the oncoming vampires. He knew he was taking a serious chance with his life since, if the backwards push with his legs didn't send him far enough away, he'd wind up killing himself. According to official stats anything within five meters would be killed by the blast while anything within two hundred and thirty could still be injured by the explosion and shrapnel. So long as he could still walk and the vamps were dead, he was okay with a few cuts or bruises but chance would play a big part in how cut up he got. Mentally keeping track of the four second delay between letting go of the grenade he, on a long shot, altered his trajectory in the hopes of getting back around the corner he'd so recently charged out from in the hopes of putting something between him and the blast.

He was only partially successful.

Only half of him managed to get around the corner but the lower half of his legs caught some frag, tearing open bleeding wounds and causing him to wince in pain. However, as he found out when he tried to stand up, the damage was not so bad that he wouldn't be able to at least walk under his own power, though he had some doubts that he'd be able to run, much less sprint. As luck would have it running didn't seem to be in the cards since neither of the two vamps that'd been guarding the door had come around the corner to tear him limb from limb. Walking slowly and cautiously towards the last place he saw the vamps, he found one of them missing a limb or two while the other looked like he'd taken some frag to the neck cutting a major artery. While a vamp wouldn't die from blood loss, it would make them decidedly more eager to replenish the blood they'd lost. The one still standing had noticed him but, when it tried to come after him, the movements were decidedly slower and somewhat unsteady.

"Okay, fangface. It's off to the dustbin for you," he said as he took careful aim with the shotty. "I guarantee you, you won't be lonely."

The vamp tried to dodge but, fortunately for him, it had lost enough blood that his movements were slowed down by a measurable amount. Both shots hit their mark, obliterating the bloodsucker's motionless heart, causing it to turn to dust in an instant.

The ghost of a DI screamed at him to not dick around, to end the threat, but he was a mouthy teenager… so he talked. "Now, I know what you're thinking: It's not fair! He used a grenade!" He lined up a headshot. "The thing is… fair? Unfair? I'm the guy with the gun."

BOOM!

With decapitation successfully accomplished, he free to enter the room they'd been guarding and rescue Joyce. Moving forward, he carefully opened the formerly guarded door and stepped inside to find that his hunch was right because standing in the middle of a glowing arcane circle was none other than Joyce Summers. She didn't look too good but, from what he could tell, she hadn't lost consciousness so that was a good thing but he'd definitely need to get her out of there before whatever magic was going on finished.

"Hang on Missus S!" he said as he moved to remove the chains from her wrists. "I'll have you free in a jiffy!"

He took all of three steps before something hard and heavy hit him in the back of the head, sending him to the floor, barely conscious.

"I'm afraid that won't do, young man," a guy said from behind where he'd been. "I'll admit that I didn't foresee one of the Slayer's friends using modern weaponry in the attack or that she'd take on the distractions meant to keep her group occupied. Nevertheless, I won't have you ruining my operation. Instead I think I'll make this into a three person trip instead of a two person trip."

Before he could do more than roll over onto his back, he felt a force lift him off the floor before taking him over to where Joyce was and rudely dropping him on the ground. His head was clouding up and his balance was beginning to become questionable, making him believe that the blow to the head might've given him a concussion of some sort. He tried through will alone to shove aside the disorienting effects of the concussion so he could still work to free Joyce but that only seemed to further aggravate his condition.

"I'll let you keep your weapons," the man who'd attacked him from behind said with whimsical generosity. "You'll need them where you're going."

Buffy's POV

"Get the hell out of my way!" she screamed before she executed a series of attacks with her damaged blade and the lead pipe she'd pried off the wall earlier.

At first her fighting had been structured and efficient, using every lesson Giles had ever taught her in order to dispatch those who stood in her way as quickly as possible. She'd like to think that if her Watcher had been there to witness it all, he would be quite proud of the way she'd been fighting in the beginning. However, as time passed and the number of enemies didn't seem to be going down, her usual lack of patience began to compel her to hit harder as well as faster. However this'd shown signs of being a mistake after a while as she began to take hits she knew she shouldn't have. Even as the pain from the hits had forced her to dial back her impatience, the damage had been done, making certain actions painful to do even if they were necessary. Still, it hadn't quite gotten to the point where she'd have to consider retreating or abandon all hope of rescuing her mother.

Especially since she had a sneaking feeling that Xander had gotten into the building.

She didn't know what he was doing but, since none of the baddies attacking her had used a single gun or bomb on her, the noises she'd heard earlier could only have been Xander. If he was going ahead to rescue her mom then she knew he'd at least be able to keep anything serious from happening to her until she got there.

Which is getting more and more like it'll be in an hour with the way these guys are dropping. She barely managed a two swing and a kick combo on a particularly troublesome baddie.

There had to be some way of clearing a path for herself other than beating the crap out of every baddie in the room but she just wasn't able to come up with anything. That was until she looked up at the ceiling to see the still installed sprinkler system and an epiphany of an idea came to mind that just might work.

It'd worked on that vessel guy during the Harvest.

Looking about the room whenever she got a break in the fighting, she soon found the switch for the fire alarm which, if memory served her correctly, would also trigger the sprinklers. With that done she began to battle her way over to it, using both her weapons and her legs to brush the enemies aside even if it was only long enough for her to get through. Once arrived at her destination, she turned to the vampires and demons even as she reached up to grasp the switch, a smile on her face.

"Well, it's been fun, guys, but by now my friends've finished blessing the water source for the sprinklers, so it's time to spring the trap." She pulled the switch. "Hope you guys like a holy water shower!"

For once things went her way as water immediately began to fall from the sprinklers even as the sound of an alarm cut through the air. Just liked she'd planned the vamps and the demons actually bought her lie about Giles and the others blessing the water supply, with some leaving the room while the others just covered their heads with their arms. Taking advantage of this she ran for the nearest door in the direction of the all the shooting and the explosion from earlier, figuring she could either hook up with Xan or burst into the right room just in time to save her mother. Once her mom was free she'd tell her best guy friend to pull out and they'd call it a win.

Bursting through the door, she slammed it shut and then quickly used the lead pipe she'd used as an improvised weapon to wedge it shut. It likely wouldn't last too long against demonic strength but so long as it lasted long enough for her to get herself along with the people she cared about out and away, she didn't care. Moving quickly in the direction of the building where the shots had come from, it didn't take long to find the fight location since there was damage to the walls and two humanoid shaped piles of vampire ash on the ground. Seeing it all, she was unsure whether she should be impressed or worried that her friend could do so much damage. In the end though she only reaffirmed her initial opinion that the military weapons Xander had acquired were too dangerous and impractical to slayage. They lacked precision and carried too great a risk of accidentally harming bystanders.

Going to the door that likely was her ultimate destination, she pushed it open and put her best 'today is NOT a good day to mess with me' look on her face.

It faltered a bit at what she inside.

There was an arcane circle in the center of the room, glowing brightly enough to light up the entire room better than any lightbulb.

Her mother was in chains in the center of the circle, looking like she was in the middle of a dizzy spell but still conscious.

Xander was at her feet, looking like he was trying to get to his feet but the wobbling indicated that this was proving to potentially be more than he was capable of at the moment.

Lastly there was a man in a suit that practically screamed 'big boss' surrounded by minions, all of whom were currently chanting up a storm.

None of this boded well AT ALL.

"Well done, Slayer," the leader said with a smarmy smile. "You managed to get past the obstacles I set in your way a little quicker than expected. We're not quite ready for you."

"Oh, you're ready, alright!" she said, bringing her sword up in preparation for cutting the enemy in half. "Ready to find out firsthand if a sword this banged up can cut through each and every one of you?"

With that she charged forward, determined to slice up the minions before they could finish whatever chant they were doing and then go after their leader. They made it really convenient for her since apparently they couldn't move while doing their thing, so one by one they fell to her blade. THEN it was time for the man who'd orchestrated the whole affair to feel the pain of impalement, so she thrust the tip of her sword towards his throat, figuring if that didn't kill him she could still decapitate him. However, inches before the point would've touched bare skin, a field of energy popped into existence, proving to be as hard as concrete since her weapon just stopped upon hitting it.

"Ah, ah, AH! It won't be so easy as that, Slayer." The man sounded quite cocky. "I haven't lived this long by being that easy to kill. Care to try again?"

Bringing up her sword for another, even harder swing, she paused just as she began when she considered something. Wasn't this guy being a little too provocative and encouraging in her efforts to break his barrier and come after him? Could he be trying to trick her into wasting time? It made sense so she turned from him, walking into the now-harmless arcane circle, intent on slicing through the chains binding her mother. With her first swing she was encouraged since she could already see the damage, making her believe that it'd take maybe five swings to each chain to free her mother. However, as she prepared for her second swing, the sound of chuckling caught her attention since it was never a good idea for the big bad to be laughing like that.

"You're just as predictable as my employer said you'd be, Slayer." the man said with great confidence. "You no doubt thought that by killing my minions you stopped the spell. Permit me to inform you that all you did was stop them from using the enchantment that kept the spell in check. With it gone… well, I guess it's a good thing you decided to travel light. Goodbye, Slayer!"

With that the man tossed what looked to be a common quarter in her direction and she recognized that it was likely to be the proverbial match that'd lead to the magical fire at her feet being lit. Her immediate instinct was to flee, to get out of the circle, but her love for her mother stayed her feet and thus her falling victim to the warlock seemed certain.

Certain were it not for what happened next.

Strong hands clamped onto her shoulders and then, with surprising strength, she was thrown through the air, making a part of her compliment whoever'd done it for the height and distance they were managing. It was close but, if whoever had thrown her had done so with the intent of tossing her clear of the arcane circle, then they succeeded albeit by the slimmest of margins. Turning around to look back the way they'd come, she was surprised to find out that it was Xander who'd thrown her and, while it looked like he'd fall over at any second, he had his usual lopsided grin on his face.

"Give'em hell!" Xander said with a goofy thumbs up that was just so him.

Before she could say anything to him like 'get out of the circle', the light coming from the drawing on the floor flared with newfound strength, forcing her to look away and shield her eyes. She didn't know how much time passed before the light began to dim to the point where she could look back at where her mother and Xander had been but, when it did, she beheld an earthshattering sight.

There was nothing.

Where once there had been her mother trapped in chains and her best guy friend wobbling on his feet with his lopsided grin there was now nothing but an arcane circle that seemed to be evaporating into nothing with every second that passed. Her mind immediately went to a worst case scenario, that the two of them had been killed, and it would not be an understatement that she was on the verge of suffering a mental break. She'd just lost her mother and someone who, despite how she acted, she was grateful to for saving her life that first year. Her mindscape teetered between collapsing into a vacant void and exploding with a rage that knew no bounds or satisfaction.

As luck would have it, her mind got a helping hand.

"Well, this certainly didn't turn out the way I'd intended," the big bad said like someone who'd cooked a disappointing meal. "Still, two out of three isn't bad and I'm sure I can sell this to my client as a 'job accomplished'. After all, with trauma like this, all he'll have to do is threaten her remaining allies to paralyze her into indecision."

Threaten… my friends.

Fury and the destruction of the one responsible for the pain buried beneath the fury were the only things that existed in her mind at that point. She did not perceive her body raising itself off the floor, nor did she detect the odd feeling rippling through the air. With a growl that was more animal than human she charged the cause of her pain, bringing back her right fist with the full intention of putting it through the bastard's head. However, just as before with her sword, the barrier surrounding the warlock stopped the attack from landing and an infuriatingly smug smile grew bigger on his face.

Right up until the protective field showed slight signs of wavering seconds after the punch impacted it.

This sign of progress, of its potential breach, was all her fury needed to begin raining down blow after blow on the field, ignoring completely the damage she was doing to her hands in the process.

Ignoring the barely perceivable wisps of black mist rising up off her exposed flesh.

It would only be an hour later that the remaining members of the Scooby gang would arrive to find the factory deserted, Buffy with her knees tucked to her chest and a bloody, unidentifiable corpse laying in a pool of its own blood.

It would be hours before they managed to coax her out of her thoughts in order to find out what'd happened but, when they discovered the truth, the effects were almost as dramatic for them as it'd been for her. Willow broke down crying and wound up being sedated before being taken to the hospital until she calmed down enough that there was no fear of her harming herself in her sorrow. Giles did his best to remain strong for Buffy since she no longer had family to lean on and regularly paid visits to Willow in the hospital until she was discharged under the supervision of her returned parents. Nevertheless, he suffered too for, as infuriating as Xander had been, he'd still come to view the boy as a sort of surrogate son.

All members of the Scooby gang were bombarded with questions they posed to themselves. Would things have turned out differently if they'd left with either Buffy or Xander? Had there been some resource they had failed to tap that would've made things turn out better? In the end they realized that such questions were pointless as time only moved in one direction.

All they could do was take things as they were now and begin working towards the goal of preventing such tragedy from happening again in the future.

But that is a story for another time.