Part 5 Who's the First?

Everyone had gathered at Alex's request in the living room of the Summers home.

"So what did you want us here for Xander?" spat Buffy

"I have found someone with detailed knowledge of the First and have asked her to give us a run down on his abilities. Please listen closely, as what she has to say may save not only your life, but everyone else's as well."

Willow looked around. "Who is it, I don't see anyone new around? Is she outside, you know it's not safe to leave people outside after dark. Hurry up and go get her."

Alex coughed trying to stifle a laugh before pulling Anya up to the front.

Buffy looked confused at first and then upset. "If you know so much about the first why didn't you say anything?"

Anya gave her a withering glare, "Because you tried to kill me and no one else bothered to ask. Hello vengeance demon for eleven hundred years you think I might pick up some knowledge along the way."

Buffy looked more angry then chastised, and turned to glare at Alex as if it was his fault. Alex just shrugged and took his seat beside Dawn waiting for Anya to begin.

Anya began her briefing, "Xan… sorry Alex has asked me to tell you everything I know about the First. I will cover his Strengths, weaknesses, minions, usual tactics, goals, and long-term plans. I could keep you all sitting there for weeks talking about the First, I have been dealing with the pest for eight hundred years now. But Alex isn't paying me enough for that so you'll get a quick rundown on him."

Several potentials let out a breath they hadn't known they were holding and relaxed a little knowing that it would be a short lecture.

"OK I'll start with what is one of his biggest strengths as well as his biggest weakness. The First is non-corporeal on this plane." Seeing the blank looks from most of her audience she huffed and continued. "That means he can't touch or be touched by anything. Actually non-corporeal isn't quite accurate enough, what you see here is really a sending.

"The First never leaves his own realm. He has enough enemies on both sides he would be in a world of hurt if he did. In his own realm he's perfectly safe and his sendings are illusions and as such *nothing* you can do will harm him. On the plus side he can't physically harm you. That doesn't mean he won't manipulate you or use others he's manipulated to attack us.

"Another of his greatest strengths is his planning. He his time setting up a scenario and never ever exposes his actual plan. It's like playing that game with the three cups and the ball. While your trying to guess what cup the ball is under the First is picking your pocket. No, that's not right, it's more like he'd be robbing your house and emptying your bank account. So even if you do guess right the First has still beat you.

"This leads into his motivations and goals. The First has little to no interest in opening a Hellmouth or destroying the world. He considers this realm a playground and humanity his playthings.

"He has a set of customs and agreements made with various gods and demons that he abides by which limits his role on this plane. If he was truly interested he could overrun this planet in hours killing every living thing human and animal. Fortunately for us that wouldn't suit his plans. He has all the territory he needs, and why kill someone when his or her soul will just ascend to heaven. No his goal, his plan is to corrupt innocent pure souls to the point where they will spend eternity in hell. His favorite past time is corrupting Champions, and he's remarkably good at it.

"I remember this one, a Russian noble, the guy thought he was defeating the First at every turn. He had defeated the demons that the First threw at him, and destroyed his lieutenants even though he had to sacrifice a few villages to do it he had won. But his minor skirmish with a few demons polarized the people, and the innocent deaths were blamed on the ruling class. A few months later you had the Russian revolution, and thousands of pure souls were tainted and corrupted. Now don't let me screw up your history Russia was a powder keg, but the First manipulated it so the end result was in his favor. Because of the First's games Stalin eventually came to power."

Seeing the blank stares of the people around her she sighed, "Russia's answer to Hitler. It was only 60 years ago, don't they teach anything in your schools?"

Not waiting for an answer Anya continued, "Now as for minions, he has the usual assortment of demons under his command. But I wouldn't expect to see many of them. He likes to have something unique in each game he plays so your likely to see creatures that haven't been around in thousands of years or new unique demons. He may send some of his acolytes to observe the situation." Anya snickered. "I shouldn't say observe, they are all blind. He's named them bringers after one of his most impressive successes. The corruption of the bringer of light, he who was once favored above all others."

Giles and Willow paled further and gasped in shock. It took a second before Giles stuttered out "He was the one who corrupted Lucifer?"

Anya nodded, "It was the early days of the Universe and the creator was very busy with fine tuning everything. When he returned to heaven he put an end to the First's manipulations but a portion of heavens armies had been corrupted. See the creator is big on free will and the Seraphim, Cherubs and Angels had all made their choices. Rather than reverse their decisions and thereby take away their choice he banished them. But that is a little off topic and not something that we need to concern ourselves with right now. Where was I … Ah yes leadership.

"His leaders are almost always recruited from those he's already corrupted. Defrocked priest, fallen champions, darkened heroes. Faith and Willow would be excellent examples of what he would have been looking for."

Seeing several faces darken and Buffy open her mouth she continued quickly. "Although now that you are on the path to redemption he would no longer be interested in you. His leaders would be confident of the rightness of their actions, their corrupted beliefs would justify anything they did."

Willow leaned forward staring at Anya intently, "So you're saying because we realized that our actions were wrong the first isn't interested in us?"

"No I didn't say he wasn't interested in you, just that you weren't suitable to serve as his lieutenants. As he's playing his game here there is no doubt that you have a role to play. You all are involved to some degree. Think of it as a chess game, some of you will be pawns," she made a gesture at the potentials, "some of you will be the more important pieces. The thing you need to figure out is where everyone fits into the game."

Buffy jumped in, "Well it's obvious that I'm the Queen and Angel is the King. I mean we are both champions and you said he likes to corrupt champions."

Anya snorted and mumbled "Important much" before continuing, "He does like to corrupt champions, but that is his past time. He's playing a game here. His goal might be simple like the loss of a single pawn, or more complex like destroying all the supporting pieces and turning the king and queen. It all depends on his long-term plan. Something we will likely never know until it's to late."

Giles felt it was time to add in his point, "Could it be as simple as destroying the slayer line?"

Alex winced at Giles' simplistic thoughts on strategy. After everything Anya had told them so far he knew it had to be more than that.

"Maybe something deeper like the corruption of the Slayer line. He's destroyed the council, and is attempting to kill all the slayers and the potentials they trained." Alex pause to gauge the response of the potentials before continuing. "But there hasn't been a noticeable rise in the death rate of young women around the world so it seems he's leaving the untrained potentials alone."

Anya smiled, finally someone who saw the bigger picture and actually listened to what she was saying. "That's more likely… Alex. Could you just imagine what kind of damage a slayer could do without any supervision? Sure the slayer spirit would drive her to hunt vampires. But give a 15 year old super strength and quick reflexes how many do you think will go bad. How many champions could he corrupt simply by destroying the watchers and their influence?"

Everyone paled at the thought. The Scoobies thinking of Faith when she had gone bad and the potentials concerned that Alex was right and they were definite target simply because they had been trained.

Anya watched them all closely finding it interesting how they all dealt with the possibility. The potentials shifted and twitched, but this was really only confirmation of what they had already been told. Giles removed his glasses and made to clean them before placing them back on his face and sitting up straighter. Xander and Dawn had both blinked at the same time with identical frowns and then with a slight shake of their heads focused again on her. Willow's shoulders slumped almost in defeat, but the electricity crackling along her fingers said she wasn't going to go without a fight. Buffy was the most disturbing. She slumped bonelessly back in her chair her eyes closed and it seemed to take a long time for her to gather herself together. It was almost as if she was accepting defeat before the battle had been joined.

Anya cleared her throat gathering everyone's attention, "Well this scenario is a possibility, but we can't focus on it exclusively. The First will play games within games. Expect him to lie to you, promise you anything and everything you ever dreamed of. But remember you're only as weak as you let yourself be, the worst thing that can happen to you is that you listen to him, to trust him. If you do that your soul is truly damned. If all he does is kill you… well you end up in heaven enjoying the afterlife."

"As I said earlier one of the First's greatest strengths is that he is non-corporeal. That is also one of his greatest weaknesses. He is easily identified by his inability to touch anything. Something as simple as a handshake will tell you if the person you are talking to is the first or not." Anya broke off and walked about the room shaking the hands of everyone present.

"See now we know for sure that none of you are the First. A common greeting in many countries will verify who you are talking to. It's a good idea for all of you to take up the habit of greeting people with a handshake. I don't however recommend hugs as that puts your neck to close to someone's teeth."

There were several muted chuckles from around the room.

"Now another of his minor powers is his ability to appear as anybody who has already died. I believe you all know about this one already, but to clarify it a bit, he can be anyone who has died. That includes the truly dead, vampires, and even resurrected people like you Buffy. He won't limit himself to good taste, he can and will assume the form of your watchers, family, friends, anyone and everyone is fair game.

"If he identifies a living person with a great deal of influence over you he may have that person killed so he can assume their identity. The best way to counter this is again the handshake greeting. If the illusion is constantly broken there is little point in him trying to assume their identities, and one less reason to kill people close to you."

Giles and Willow were nodding their heads. Alex sat with a small smile on his face. This briefing was more than he had ever hoped for, and he was quite impressed with Anya's presentation.

"One thing you have to remember is that the First is absolutely invulnerable in this realm. There are no magical or non-magical weapons capable of harming him. If there were my Lord D'Hoffryn would have put an end to the pest millennia ago. The only way to defeat the First other than breaking down the gates to his domain and attacking him there is to survive the game he is playing. Once the game is played out the First will leave, win loose or draw. He doesn't do vengeance and doesn't gloat. He will leave to play elsewhere and you will likely never know if you have won or lost till your final judgment comes." Anya paused "Any Questions?"

Giles spoke up. "Yes does he have any enemies that would help us? Say if we found a way to assault his domain directly."

Anya looked shocked at the thought. "It would be extremely foolish for you to assault the Firsts realm, he has hundreds of thousands of true demons and followers as well as hundreds of fallen champions. But if you were to find a way to breach the gates I can think of three or four demon Lords that would be glad to run the assault themselves.

I told you that the First has made many enemies over the years. His game playing has upset many powerful beings. The Egyptian Pantheon for instance wasn't to impressed with the First's stint as the god Bes. Bes had worshippers and idols in every home in ancient Egypt, taking followers from all the gods."

Giles looked confused, "But wasn't Bes a neutral god? I know he was considered a demon but most of the population worshipped him as a protector and guardian of women and children."

"The origin of the role of Bes was due to a comment by Amon-Ra. Ra claimed that the First would be unable to steal or corrupt any of his followers. The First took up the challenge. It took almost a thousand years but there was a time Bes was worshipped in every home in Egypt. Not even Ra had as many followers or as much loyalty. Quite often the first word an infant would say was his name.

"The First doesn't play well with others and has made himself some powerful enemies. The only thing that keeps him alive and safe is the fact that physical or magical forces cannot breach the gates to his realm. My Lord D'Hoffryn tried everything he knew for thirty years to breach the gates and nothing, not even the power of *his* wishes could scratch them."

Alex leaned forward intently, "Exactly how much power would you need to breach the gates?"

"A Supernova would do it, but you can't control those or someone would have already done it. I'd say you would need at least enough power to vaporize the planet and shatter the moon."

Gasps were heard around the room.

Alex nodded deep in thought, "But if we found the power the explosion would take place in his realm and wouldn't harm ours right?"

"More or less. Dropping that much power in one location tends to lead to sudden dimensional instabilities of short duration. You'd get something like when Glory tried to merge the dimensions focused around all the dimensional weak points. It would only last a second or two but a lot can happen in that time. Where do you think you could get that kind of power?"

"I have an idea, but I need to contact a few people and check out some organizations first."

Dawn's eyes widened for just an instant before her face shifted to a You better not be planning what I think your planning look. There was only one way she knew to get that much power, even from a nuke, and she wasn't looking forward to dealing with the organization in question. Especially if General O'Neill was commander here like he was in the other reality.

With Anya's presentation done Buffy, Willow and the potentials prepared for patrol, while Giles cornered Anya with a thousand questions. Alex and Dawn slipped out the door and headed to their car to gather their own tools for patrol. Buffy may not approve, and they may not have slayer strength or magic, but they were going to contribute their training and skills to the fight.

~~~~**~~~~

Webb was normally a very busy man. In the last six months he had traveled more miles and been to more 'developing' countries than he cared to count. Currently he was sitting behind a desk reading reports. Not by choice but because he'd caught a piece of shrapnel in the leg while he was in Srinagar. So the DDO had put him on desk duty till he could walk unaided.

Fortunately for General Christoph this gave Webb plenty of time to leaf through the pile of paper that he had acquired on Harris and his people. It wasn't until he got towards the bottom of the pile that things got really interesting. "How the hell did Harris get involved with the sections?"

Webb had run into the Sections a time or two. Section one had extracted one of his teams from the Balkans and they often shared intelligence. That didn't mean he trusted them. How could you trust an agency that forcibly recruited its agents from the criminal population? He preferred patriots and while you still couldn't trust them you at least knew their allegiances.

Flipping through the papers again he sighed. Harris must be a key part of section's plans for the hellmouth to have a budget that big. Most of the nations he'd visited lately didn't have GDPs that big. It seemed a little odd that they trusted a kid with something this important. However the kid got results, he had to admit that.

He could see the talent the kid had from the reports. You don't fight the darkness for that long and survive without some sort of ability.

Picking up a report on the theft of an AT-4 from the Sunnydale National Guard depot he chuckled. The kid had nerve. Walked right up to the sentry and talked his way past. Then his team fired the rocket from the help desk in the mall. It wasn't exactly discrete yet it was still very effective against the blue skinned demon.

Digging out the report on the school explosion he flipped to the HAZMAT portion. The kid had used home mixed ANFO combined with military grade detonators and used a small quantity of C-4 to kick start the whole thing. The combination wasn't something you saw everyday but spoke of his efforts to be thorough. He shuddered as he read the reports on the Demon corpse. The HAZMAT team had discovered eight bodies inside the remains of the worm. In less than a minute the Demon had consumed eight people, he didn't want to imagine the destruction if Harris hadn't eliminated it.

Tossing the report back on his desk he sat back to consider everything he'd read that morning. Harris and his team seemed efficient and effective. However all of their actions appeared to be reactionary. Even the vampire hunting was at best a holding action. The only proactive instance he could see was their attempt to retrieve the Box of Gavrock. Perhaps they lacked the manpower to be proactive. With Harris' budget they had all money and equipment they would need so that wasn't a factor.

Who was capable of assisting Harris' team though that was the question? He couldn't send any of his own people, they weren't legally permitted to operate on US soil and he didn't trust the NSA to know a stake from a steak.

He briefly pondered taking a trip down to Falls Church before deciding that Jag would be more hindrance than help in the current situation. Although if he ever needed someone to look into Sunnydale he could always feed A.J. an edited version of the AT-4 file.

No, what they really needed was a team experienced in Demon hunting.

Reaching a decision he picked up the phone and punched in the extension of the DDO.