The Sleeper Must Awaken
Disclaimer: All characters are the intellectual property of their respective creators, film companies, etc.; this story may not be sold or distributed on a profit-making basis. I welcome free distribution of the story, but please let me know if you are going to do it. trinfaneb at yahoo dot com.
Written for the SG-1 General Fic-A-Thon for Ueshiba who wanted "Post-Chosen, the disturbance over Antarctica is noticed (last eps in S7 for SG1) and a team sent to investigate. Jack is discovered and rescued via magical means" and "In-depth character development, not the instantaneous 'I'm a Slayer, you kill aliens?" and NO "PWP or Another Portal!Buffy story; Military!Xander having been in the SGC - too much of this already."
Spoilers: Major spoilers for pretty much all of Buffy and Angel, especially "Chosen" and "Not Fade Away." Spoilers for the basic plot of seasons 1-7 of SG-1 and especially "The Lost City" parts 1 and 2.
&&&&
Chapter 1
As it turned out, Willow materialized only a few feet above the ground in the mile deep ice cavern. Under the circumstances, she thought that was a pretty good teleporting spell. She didn't have the time nor the spare mystical energy to make herself levitate, so she just plopped down onto the ice as her hair color changed from white to its normal red. Fortunately she wore stuntman-style body pads and was prepared to roll like a parachutist in order to break her fall.
Taking inventory as she regained her breath after the impact, she realized that nothing seemed to be broken or sprained. She also wasn't freezing to death either. The down outerwear helped with this, but the temperature of the chamber seemed to be not too far below freezing. At this point she wasn't sure if this was due to the insulating properties of ice, geothermal activity, or a by-product of the strange looking machinery in the cavern.
She fished a crystal out of a jacket pocket as she walked around the chamber. She held the crystal out in front of her as she made a circuit of the room so that it had a clear view of everything in the chamber. She stopped under the mile long bore hole through the ice and held the crystal above her head and intoned, "obscure espion." Now she didn't have to worry about any electronic spying devices left behind by the government. If there were any devices present, they would show the chamber with no activity and normal environmental readings. Her teleportation spell had included a five minute long spy blocking sub-spell to cover the period before she cast the main spell.
She looked up the bore hole and saw that it went straight up to the surface without any obstructions. Her own spy probes had shown her that the government had constructed a building over the hole and posted guards around the site and the likely land approaches. But they didn't come down the hole and investigate the machinery. She supposed this had something to do with the non-military aspects of the eleven-nation Antarctica treaty. Her probes showed personnel from many nations cleaning up the debris from some great battle above the surface. She suspected that it was some kind of aerial dogfight. She also suspected that the different countries were negotiating mutual access to the chamber below. Therefore she needed to learn as much as she could before they started coming down the ice.
She knew the cavern and the activity surrounding it had something to do with the government reports of a meteor shower that hit a Pacific carrier group almost a month ago and caused the deaths of 2,000 American service men and women. She and Andrew suspected that this was a cover story for the battle over the underground chamber. He had seen some very interesting rumors on the internet about these and other events. Over the past year since she performed the Slayer activation spell, she had greatly increased her mystical awareness of her surroundings and of Gaea as a whole. She shouldn't be able to sense a conventional battle thousands of miles away, but she did sense the Antarctica battle. She was able to do that because the heaviest concentrations of mystical energy she had ever felt had been used during the battle.
Xander had compared it to Obi-Wan sensing the destruction of Alderan, although she hadn't sensed the snuffing out of any lives. Just the biggest honking display of power she had ever felt. Even if that power felt subtlety different from any other mystical energy she had ever encountered. It eclipsed her Darth Willow and activation spell experiences. She was cognizant enough about her psychological make-up to realize she wouldn't be able to rest until she investigated the source of this power and found it if there was any way for her to use it.
She hadn't put it in those terms to the rest of the gang during their weekly leadership meeting. But they had agreed that this event needed to be investigated and Willow was the logical person to do it. So she had teleported some mystical spy probes over the battle area and down the bore hole. She was busy making refinements to her teleporting spell so she could safely materialize into the chamber when she began to feel mystical rumblings of a battle in Los Angeles. She teleported more spy probes and managed to witness the end of the battle in the alley near the Hyperion.
Within a couple of minutes she saw Gunn, then the creature that had killed Fred, and then Spike be killed by the demon hordes. She was frantically explaining things to Kennedy and preparing a teleport spell when Angel was set upon by a dozen demons and dusted. Angel and his crew had killed at least a hundred of the demons including one dragon, but there were just too many in the end. Over the past year she had tried to pretend she didn't care about Angel, Spike, Wesley, and the others she didn't know as well, but now she broke down and let a couple of tears slip out and swore vengeance upon those who had killed her former comrades-in-arms.
Last fall she had reluctantly gone along with Giles and Xander and agreed not to have any direct contact with Angel and his people. Faith had become bored and irritated with the then teleconference meetings just a few months after the Sunnydale Hellmouth was closed and now ignored them and concentrated on Slayer training and demon killing in Cleveland. The re-materialization of Spike, the conflict over mental patient turned Slayer Dana, and the emergence of Illyria had made it easier to shun Angel and his decision to take over the Wolfram & Hart LA branch. Giles and Xander still didn't trust Spike and feared Illyria and Willow shared the same feelings, if only to a lesser extent. Buffy was in Rome and in love with the Immortal and didn't participate in most Slayer business these days. The group decision had been made not to inform her about Spike's re-emergence. It was reasoned that if Spike really cared about her, he would make an effort to contact her himself.
Well now that would never happen. During the emergency meeting that was called after the Hyperion Battle, all the facts came out and Buffy had some choice words for everyone. She cut her phone connection and wouldn't return any calls. Later they learned from Dawn that Buffy broke up with the Immortal because he had also concealed knowledge of Spike from her. Dawn said that Buffy just wanted to be left alone. The Senior Slayer felt sad and guilty.
Willow shared those emotions. But she also felt the need for vengeance. She, Faith, Andrew, and most of the Slayers vowed to destroy those who had killed Angel, Spike, and Wesley. Giles and Xander had tried to argue against it, but they soon realized they couldn't win and gave their reluctant assistance to the venture.
Leaving only one Slayer and a trainee Watcher in Cleveland, the Slayer army descended upon Los Angeles. In the first week they killed every hostile demon they could find in the city. Then they followed the remnants of the demon army as it fled across several demon dimensions. By three weeks after the Hyperion battle, all the demons that had participated in that conflict were dead. Five Slayers and two Watchers were also killed, but everyone realized a great blow had been delivered against the demon world.
They knew that retaliation would be coming, but the Slayer army would be ready for it. They left a few Slayers in LA and withdrew back to Cleveland to heal and train. Willow meditated several days in order to purge herself of the negative feelings she had experienced during the conflict. She felt she had enjoyed personally killing those hundreds of demons more than she should have. She also felt guilty about abandoning Angel. She knew in her heart that the abandonment had helped push Angel and the others into their suicidal venture. He should have tried to persuade her that he was doing the right thing. She would have believed him and convinced everyone to help him. But he didn't and she had been too busy building up the Slayer army, her relationship with Kennedy, and her mystical powers to seek him out and attempt to put things right. Hopefully she would have a long life in order to deal with her guilty feelings about the events of the past month. As well as the usual problems they faced with finding and training Slayers and fighting demons, now she, Xander, and Giles faced the difficult and perhaps even impossible task of reconciling with Buffy. But that was for the future. Now it was time to investigate the cavern in Antarctica.