Chapter 18

Faith awoke with a start, immediately checking her surroundings before relaxing again against the lumpy motel mattress. The sun shone brightly through the window, high in the sky. Faith checked the clock and saw it was already almost noon. She pulled herself out of bed and looked down at the odd weight on her wrist, seeing the unfamiliar wristwatch there jogged her memory and she lay back on the bed again remembering the insane day she had had yesterday. After the extremely unexpected announcement that Xander was a Spartan and that one of their team was a fucking AI, they had headed out into the Sunnydale night for a little bit of vampire killing/team building. Xander and Buffy filled Faith in on a little bit of the post Spartanization events in and out of Sunnydale in between bouts of spirited vampire killing. Faith thought she had gotten over her initial shock and disbelief, even taking Xander's tales of fighting the Covenant and Flood in another god damn dimension in stride, but when Buffy pulled out her Covenant plasma sword and eviscerated a very surprised vampire, Faith had nearly lost it. First in disbelief, then in envy. She thought back to how excited she had been the first time she got to use a crossbow and laughed in disbelief. Here she was stoked to get to use a weapon that had been invented in the Middle Ages while her sister slayer was hacking apart vampires and demons with a blade made of energy?!

She was startled by a knock at the door and out of reflex grabbed a knife before approaching. When she looked through the peephole she was surprised to see Xander and Cortana standing outside. She pocketed the knife and swung the door open. "Hey Xman, Cortana, what are you two doing here?" She asked while stepping back from the door, leaving the invitation to enter unspoken.

Xander smiled and walked in with Cortana in tow. "Hey Faith, we thought we would come by and see if you wanted to check out Spartan Central today."

Cortana glanced over with a raised eyebrow. "We are not calling our warehouse Spartan Central. Did you just come up with that?"

"Maybe. Anyway want to come check it out?" Xander asked. "Figure we should get you a little more oriented with what kind of gadgets and weapons we might be using out there so you don't freeze in shock like last night when Buffy pulled out that energy sword."

Faith laughed. "Can you blame me? That shit was insane! Tell me you've got another one of those for me?"

"Sorry, right now we've just got a couple of them, and Buffy won hers fair and square saving Xander," Cortana replied, "but if you're looking for some upgrades I've got lots of cool tech to make your job a little easier out there. Want to come check it out?"

Faith nodded enthusiastically. "Hell yeah, let's see what slaying looks like in the 26 century."

In another part of town another person, or vampire really, was having a far less pleasant start to his morning. Trick had woken up a couple hours before Faith with manacles around his arms and legs and a half dozen men in suits dragging him out of his lair. They'd thrown blankets over him to prevent him from becoming substantially crispier and then pulled him through the daylight into a waiting SUV, where a hood had been placed over his head. He'd been driven… somewhere, before being roughly pulled out of the SUV and dragged into a nearby building. Once there he'd been handcuffed to something and shoved roughly into a seat. After a few minutes, the hood had been removed and he found himself sitting across a metal interrogation table facing a disarmingly smiling man whom he had never met before but looked vaguely familiar.

The man waited for the vampire to get his bearings before speaking. "Hello, Mr Trick, do you know who I am?"

Trick eyed the man warily and shook his head. "No, but based on the too wholesome to be real smile I'm going to guess you're probably in politics."

The man laughed genuinely and nodded. "That's very perceptive of you, I can see why Kakistos liked you. My name is Richard Wilkins and I'm the mayor here in this fine little town." Wilkins got up and started to walk around the table, the too genuine to be real smile never leaving his face. "See I like to think of myself as a mayor that's involved in the community. Too many politicians these days sit behind a desk, out of touch with their constituents and the goings on of their town. But not me! I like to keep connected with what's really happening in my little town. So when I heard a rumour about a little competition that someone was setting up in Sunnydale, well I felt like I should reach out and speak with the enterprising organizer."

"Someone told you about Slayerfest," Trick guessed.

"Again, very perceptive Mr Trick!" Wilkins said with a smile. "Slayerfest! What an enterprising concept! Great name too," Wilkins said with a chuckle. "I really would like to see more young people today with that entrepreneurial spirit. But I also think it's possible you might not have all the facts that you want before you set up this little contest. You see, there are more than just a couple of slayers in this town. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

Trick gave the mayor a questioning look. "You're talking about her Watcher, her friends?" He asked. "I'm not too concerned about a few teenagers and a British antique," he snorted. "The entry fee of each competitor should ensure a very sizeable pot for the winner, even after I take my organizers fee. The competitors that are coming in are among the best at what they do. Whatever the slayers friends come up with won't be a problem."

"Well, on that I think you might be a little mistaken," Wilkins replied, sitting back down. One of his guards handed him a folder which he placed on the table. "You see, last Halloween there was an incident where for a night, many of the people in town were turned into their costumes. Since then, well, let's just say some new wrinkles have appeared." Wilkins slid the file over to Trick. Trick looked at it curiously and opened the file to see a series of photos. All of them showed an armoured figure in various stages of combat with vampires and demons, some of which Trick had never seen before. In one of them he was wielding some kind of assault rifle, but in others he was holding some kind of glowing sword. In two of them he was fighting side by side with a slayer. Trick looked up at Wilkins in confusion. "What the hell is this?"

"Language, young man," Wilkins admonished. "What you are looking at are photos taken in the last 10 months of someone who has been helping the slayer. Somehow, this person has become a Spartan." Trick looked at Wilkins in confusion and the mayor chuckled. "I know, I had no idea what that was either. But one of my younger staffers explained to me that a Spartan is a super soldier from a video game called Halo."

Trick looked at the mayor in disbelief. "A super soldier from a video game is running around town fighting vampires and demons. You can't be serious."

"Well I try not to take myself too seriously but in this case yes that's exactly what I mean." The mayors smile vanished, and suddenly Trick had a glimpse of the predator that lurked underneath. "Whoever this is, they have started to bring attention to my little town. Gun battles with demons and robots in the streets! A military base and aircraft carrier in my town, MY TOWN, were attacked! Slayers are an annoyance all by themselves, but at least they have the decency to operate quietly, covertly. This Spartan, he is bringing down scrutiny. And I have worked for far too long to let some armoured do gooder bring attention to my town and my plans, not when I'm so close."

"Close to what?" Trick asked warily.

All of a sudden the predator was gone and the plastic smile returned. "That's, shall we say, above your pay grade Mr Trick. For now at least."

"Oh, I didn't realize this was a job interview," Trick said sarcastically.

"Not in the conventional sense, but that is more or less my intention here," the mayor admitted. "You see I could use a man like you. I have no intention of trying to stop this Slayerfest of yours, quite the contrary actually. Tell me Mr Trick, what would happen if I was to double the pot? Do you think that might attract a few more competitors? Of course a larger pot and more competitors would mean a larger take for a certain organizer of the event."

Tricks eyes widened in surprise. "You want to fund Slayerfest?"

Wilkins nodded. "Not only that but I'll set up an area on the outskirts of town away from any prying eyes. I want this problem dealt with, permanently, and I don't think quietly is going to be an option. I need people who can think outside the box and solve problems. You solve my problem for me, and let's just call the additional money you make a signing bonus if you will. So what do you say Mr Trick? Would you like to join my team?" As he asked, he motioned for a guard to uncuff Trick from the table he was stuck to.

Trick rubbed his wrists and grinned greedily. "I think we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement Mr Mayor."

Faith looked around Xander's warehouse in amazement. An armoured truck with a huge mounted gun sat in the corner, there were machines all over the place that she had no idea what the purpose of was, and sitting in a glass enclosure was the armour, battered and bent but still unmistakeable. Small robots crawled over the armour, clearly repairing the extensive damage to the suit. And then there was the table by the firing range. It was absolutely covered in weapons. Pistols, rifles, crazy looking purple things that she could only assume were alien in origin, even a rocket launcher. "This is insane!" Faith exclaimed. "How the hell did you afford all of this?!"

"Initially I made us a significant income trading on the stock market," Cortana explained, "however since getting back from our little trip this summer I've been laying the groundwork for a couple of technology companies, specifically one specializing in sustainable energy and another in medical equipment and research. They should provide a steady stream of revenue while also allowing me to help advance humanity in ways that will be difficult or impossible to militarize."

Faith walked up to the glass case the armour rested in. She turned to Xander and gestured to the suit. "Looks like you took a hell of a beating dude."

Xander grimaced. "More than once unfortunately. Part of being a Spartan seems to involve getting the crap kicked out of you."

Faith chuckled and turned back around, eyes roaming over the armour in detail. "I know you can almost go toe to toe with one of us now, what about in that? How much better does it make you? What does it feel like?"

Xander shrugged. "Honestly? At first it scared the hell out of me. Every movement has to be precise, controlled. It makes you move so fast that a normal human essentially pulverizes themselves inside it. But now? It's hard to think that I can't rely on it. With that suit you can take on an army."

Faith looked longingly at the suit. "I'd love to try it. When I first got my powers I couldn't believe how strong I was, how fast. It was exhilarating, you know? To boost that up again, I bet it would be incredible!"

"Seriously? After Xander just told you the suit might kill you you still want to try it?" Buffy asked, coming over from the door where she had just entered.

"Actually that kind of makes me want to try it more. Is that weird?" Faith asked with a grin.

"Well unfortunately I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen any time soon." Xander said, "not unless we figure out how to get an element that apparently doesn't exist in our solar system."

"That's still a work in progress, which is why I called you here Buffy," Cortana said, nodding to the blonde slayer. "The reality is this summer we lost a substantial tactical advantage. Without the suit, we're essentially down to what amounts to three slayers more or less. I know that's a lot better than what all of Buffy's predecessors have dealt with, but as far as I'm concerned allowing a single unarmoured and only moderately trained teenage girl to fight for the survival of this planet with medieval weapons is and always has been unacceptable. So I've decided that we ought to start upgrading all three of your capabilities and effectiveness as much as possible. As such, I've put together some new toys for you to use."

"What have you got for us Q?" Xander asked in his best Sean Connery accent. The three of them walked over to another table at the firing range to examine the contents. There were pistols, gold tinted glasses, and strange looking bullets with brown tips. Two dummies on the range were wearing black tank tops.

Faith picked up one of the rounds and examined it. "Are these… wooden bullets?"

"Essentially, yes." Cortana replied. "I've inserted a small core of Australian Buloke ironwood, one of the hardest woods in the world, into a hollowed out standard .45 calibre slug. I call them anti-vampire, or AV rounds. But because the of the pointed tip and the fact that buloke is so strong, besides working against vampires, they still retain all the effectiveness of a standard slug. No armour piercing ability though. My thought is alternate AP and AV rounds in your magazine and then no matter what you're fighting a double tap should be effective."

Faith picked up one of the pistols, notably smaller than the magnum hand cannons that Xander typically carried, and looked down the sights at one of the dummies. "I thought slayers weren't supposed to use guns. My old watcher gave me a lecture when I asked."

"Buffy doesn't like them," Cortana replied while Buffy nodded in the background, "and no one is going to force you to use one, but I believe if there is a weapon that gives you an advantage, you might as well use it. These won't replace hand to hand but they are a lot smaller and easier to carry than a crossbow. I've also built a new pistol designed to be a little less obvious than the hand cannons that Xander usually carries. It will make less noise and has a flash suppressor built in. They also tie in nicely with these," Cortana said as she handed each of the trio a pair of the gold tinted glasses.

The three of them put them on and were surprised to find they were looking through a heads up display. A motion tracker was visible in the corner and for the effect of demonstration, Cortana had included a visible nav point on the dummies. Faith noticed a blue reticle that corresponded to wherever she pointed the pistol she was holding. "Beyond the heads up display, the glasses have a magnification feature and adjust to any lighting conditions. They include a thermal vision mode and will automatically highlight any human figure with no body heat for you. You'll also find that they will not fog up, move around, or come off during combat."

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Sunglasses at night? Not exactly fashionable."

"I'm in the business of keeping you alive," Cortana replied dismissively, "not keeping you looking ready for the runway. I can try and develop contact lenses instead if you like though. As well as new weapons and the glasses, I've also developed some new protective clothing." She gestured to the two dummies behind her.

The three turned and looked at the two dummies clad in skin tight tank tops, then turned back to look at Cortana skeptically without saying a word. Cortana replied by picking up one of the pistols off the table. She inserted a mag of standard ammunition and turned towards the dummies, firing every single bullet in the magazine into one of them. Amazingly, when the three looked back at the dummy, there did not appear to be any damage to the shirt. Two bullets were stuck to the material, which at closer inspection appeared a little thicker than a standard tank top. Faith pulled one of the bullets off and saw that the tip had flattened. She felt the tank top and it seemed as though there was a thin gel layer or something inside of it. "What the hell?"

"Inside each of the tank tops is a thin layer of a non Newtonian fluid gel I've created." Cortana explained. "It hardens on impact, so under normal conditions it feels like a mostly normal shirt, but under impact the gel solidifies into a layer of armour. It's not going to stop a high caliber or armour piercing round or a powerful demons claws, but it'll give you a lot more protection than you have now without affecting your mobility."

Faith whistled appreciatively. "Can think of a few times I wish I would have been wearing one of those already. These machine washable or dry clean only?"

"What a delightfully practical question about your new bullet resistant shirt," Cortana said with an amused smile. "Just make sure you're washing and drying them on a delicate setting or you might damage your washing machine if they bounce around too much."

Faith shrugged. "That'll be the laundromats problem anyway. Might run them on purpose and force the owners to replace a couple of those crappy machines."

"Actually, no. That will be your problem." Cortana replied. "Xander and I decided as soon as we saw your motel that you can't stay there. Not only is it not a home and therefore not under the same protections from vampires, it also doesn't have a kitchen. There were far too many pizza boxes in there."

"Fuck you, I like pizza," Faith grumbled with no real heat while she crossed her arms. "So what I'm supposed to move in here with you two?" Buffy, who had been examining the tank top, looked over in alarm. "I'm really not down with suddenly having roommates who expect me to clean and do chores and follow their house rules. That place might have sucked but I had it to myself."

"I bought a condo for you actually," Cortana replied. "It's only a few blocks away, so it's easy for you to visit but you still have your own space. We're not trying to control you Faith, we just think that you deserve better than the crappy motel the Watchers Council has stuck you in. I think someone fighting for her life and the lives of everyone in this town should at least have a decent place to live. It's not a mansion, but it's a lot more comfortable than where you were, and it comes with a kitchen and laundry, so no more pizza every night. I've also bought it in your name, so congratulations Faith you're now a home owner."

"I… I kinda don't know what to say," Faith said, blown away by the generosity that had just been shown to her. "No one has ever told me I deserve anything, other than a beating."

Cortana, Buffy and Xander all looked at each other in alarm at that statement. They knew that Faith's attitude was a bit of a front, but none of them realized maybe how bad the situation might have actually been in Faith's home life.

"Well they're wrong, and those people sucked," Buffy said brightly, surprising Xander and Cortana by jumping in. "You're our friend and deserve much better than that. In fact, I think you deserve a movie night filled with way too much sugar and salt with your friends in your new condo."

Faith smiled, looking at these three people who in a couple of days had shown her more kindness than she could remember having received in years. "Thanks B," she said with a smile, "and that sounds good, but I think it's going to have to wait a night or two." Faith walked over to the table and picked up the handgun. "First, you two are going to teach me how to use this, then for the next couple nights we're going to have a ton of fun testing all these cool new toys!"

Jack and Sam surveyed the office of Colonel Ronson. They had arrived in Sunnydale around noon and headed directly to the Army base just outside the town, intending to interview the general and some of the personnel on base. Daniel and Teal'c had headed to a hotel in town, opting to instead start doing some research into Sunnydale and the surrounding area, looking for anything that might seem alien or Halo related.

Colonel Ronson looked up from his desk and surveyed the two Air Force officers in front of him. "So Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, what brings a couple of Air Force officers with heavily redacted records to see me?"

Jack and Sam shared a raised eyebrow, neither had expected the Colonel to look into their service records, especially with such short notice before the visit. Jack decided to play it reasonably straight. "We're here about the attack on your base a few months ago sir." Jack replied.

Ronson sighed and nodded, "Yes no real surprise there. Robots attack your base and suddenly every single damn government agency with a three letter acronym for a name is descending on you with questions." Jack had to hide a smirk at that comment. "We've had the CIA, the FBI, the NID…"

"The NID?" Jack asked sharply.

Ronson nodded. "Yeah they came in and interviewed some of my personnel, an agent and a psychologist, Dr Walsh I think. That was about three months ago. Didn't get a good feeling from those two."

"How do you mean sir?" Carter asked.

"Hard for me to explain it, they were professional and polite but something about the pair of them put me on edge. They did end up taking some samples of robot parts."

Jack nodded. "In our experience they've generally been… unpleasant people to deal with. Anyway general, these robots that attacked the base and the group in the vehicle that drove them off, did you notice-"

"That they were both characters from a video game?" Ronson asked casually, leaning back in his chair. "Yeah that was brought to my attention as soon as the robots started their attack. Craziest shit I've ever seen. No one had any idea they were even robots until that truck took one down. The men thought we were under alien attack. Hell, maybe we were I'm still not sure what to think."

"And the truck, any idea where it came from? Who was in it?" Jack pressed.

Ronson shook his head. "I'm sorry Colonel in the confusion of the attack no one got a good look at the occupants. One was a blonde girl, the driver was male with brown hair, and I think we all know who the gunner was."

Carter and Jack shared a look. "Just so we are all on the same page, who do we all think the gunner was then?" Jack asked carefully.

Ronson snorted and leaned back in his chair. "Let's not beat around the bush here, Colonel. You two are here because we were attacked by robotic aliens from a video game and the Master Chief, hero of said video game and bonafide super soldier, pulled our asses out of the fire. I also know exactly what goes on at the so called "deep space radar telemetry" project you two work at. I was actually being recruited into the program before I was transferred here. Was going to head up SG-9."

Jack and Sam looked at the Colonel, who had a bitter expression on his face, in shock. "Sir, you've been read into the SGC?" Carter asked. "What are you doing here? This is a small base in-"

"The middle of nowhere with no real strategic value, no real interesting projects, and a surprising number of soldiers who simply go AWOL and are never seen again." Ronson finished with a nod. "Seems like the kind of place you get sent if someone never wants to see you again. See a couple of years ago while I was being read into the SGC, I got a call from my daughter Abby. I really don't want to get into details, but the long and short of it is that she was drugged and taken advantage of at a college party. The boy who drugged her was named Patrick Kinsey. His uncle is a senator, you might have heard of him."

Jack tensed and nodded. "We've had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting the senator on several occasions," Carter replied.

Ronson nodded, "something we have in common then. Senator Kinsey came to me and demanded that I make Abby drop the charges against her nephew. Said he wasn't going to let some stupid girl who got drunk and made a mistake wreck Patrick's future. I told him to go to Hell." Ronson said angrily. "Two days later I found out that my acceptance into the SGC was being rescinded and that I was instead going to be placed in charge of the base here outside Sunnydale instead. Meanwhile, Patrick hired a team of lawyers to defend him and they dragged my daughters name through the mud. Kinsey got off scot free and Abby had to transfer schools."

"So he wrecked your daughters name and had you transferred you to the most out of the way nothing job he could find." Jack summarized. "That sounds like the Kinsey we know."

Ronson nodded. "This base is a dead end job. But it's even worse than that." He looked at both of them seriously, pausing as if in consideration, before taking a breath and speaking. "What I tell you both now is completely off the record, do you understand? I don't mean classified, or top secret, I mean that I have things to say that will sound pretty crazy and I would prefer that there is no official record of this conversation."

"Uhh, okay? I think we can do that." Jack said, "what are you talking about here exactly?"

"I'm talking about the fact that there is something seriously wrong with this town." Ronson said. "Now, but historically too. People seeing strange things, disappearing or dying in mysterious ways. Three weeks ago I lost a Corporal who was in town over the weekend on leave. The official explanation was that he died accidentally when he tripped and was killed by a fucking barbecue fork through the neck! Which might have made sense if it wasn't for the fact that he had been found in an alley outside a club, and that there seemed to have been a significant amount of blood drained from his body."

"Well to be fair sir if the fork had hit his carotid artery it would potentially cause severe blood loss," Carter replied. "Maybe it was a mugging gone wrong."

Ronson shook his head. "You misunderstood me Major. There was nearly no blood around the body. He had been exsanguinated. And he wasn't even the first! I mentioned AWOL issues, I don't believe that's truly accurate. I believe that those men are dead. In the two years I've been stationed, I have had 47 soldiers die or disappear, that's basically two every single month. That's not counting the attack on the base! There is something going on in this town, and it's been going on for a long long time. Mysterious deaths and disappearances way above the national average happen year after year here, going back decades. There are things, not people but creatures, that are killing people in this town."

"If that's the case, why hasn't anyone noticed?"Jack asked. "You're talking about the deaths and disappearances of thousands of people over that time span."

"Maybe tens of thousands," Ronson said with a nod. "People seem to just ignore what they can't explain. Barbecue fork impalings, wild dog attacks or gangs on PCP, it always just gets explained away in ways that are at the absolute edge of plausibility. I don't have an explanation for it that makes any sense."

"But you have one that doesn't make sense?" Jack prodded.

Ronson sighed again and nodded. "I believe this town is somehow affected by some kind of supernatural force. I know you two deal with extraterrestrial activities. Maybe that is what is happening here, but honestly? I don't think so. The only theory I have that makes even a lick of sense, based on the evidence I have seen, is that this town is affected by some kind of creatures from a parallel reality. Either that, or it's vampires." He said with a laugh.

"That's… a pretty bold hypothesis sir." Carter said carefully. "Can I ask how you came to that conclusion?"

Ronson nodded. "If you look back into the history of this town, even pre America, it's always been an area associated with strange and terrible happenings. The native American Chumash and Navajo tribes believed this place to be evil, and the original Spanish settlers in California called this area Boca Del Infierno, the mouth of Hell. When I was being recruited into the SGC, I read about the quantum mirror and alternate realities that could be reached through it. While I am sure that some of those realities are basically just ours with minor differences like who won the last Super Bowl, I've got to think there's a lot of realities out there that barely resemble the Earth we know. Maybe that's what's happening here, some kind of… I don't know, natural occurrence of that phenomenon."

Jack looked over at his second in command. "Carter?"

Sam looked thoughtful. "I suppose it's not impossible sir. But I think we need to do some independent investigation to corroborate any of this."

Jack nodded. "Thank you for your time Colonel, this has been an… interesting conversation." He rose and shook Ronson's hand."

"My pleasure Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter." Ronson said with a nod to both of them. "One last word of advice," he called as they were about to leave his office, "if you're going to do research, be careful doing any kind of investigation after dark. This town is not safe, and I read enough from the SGC files to know that we can't afford to lose either one of you. Please, be careful and keep your eyes up. And if while you're digging into all this, you happen to run into a certain armoured individual or anyone working with him, tell him Colonel Ronson owes them a beer if they ever want to take me up on it. Those three saved a lot of lives that day."

"Will do Colonel, you stay safe too." Jack answered while making a mental note to see if he could get Ronson another shot at the SGC.

End Chapter 18