Xander sighed as he saw the man walking towards him. It had been four hours and he and Willow were almost ready to bring down the Arlothcks Shield, they really didn't need a visit from this jerk.
"Hello Harris," said the man with an English accent.
"Go bother someone else Crowe, we're busy at the moment," said Xander in a curt tone.
"But you haven't introduced me to your enchanting companion yet. I assume that she is the one everyone is talking about, the civilian that you have brought with you," said Alan Crowe.
"Alan Crowe, Willow the super witch. Willow this is Alan Crowe, the magician for Global Frequency," said Willow even as he handed her another piece for the spell. The Arlothcks Shield would collapse on its own in two hours, but the Hellmouth would be completed in an hour and a half if the satellite photographs were anything to go by. This meant that bad times would be had by all unless they got the field down now.
"That's nice, he can help me out with setting these up," said Willow even as she moved to the last point of the pentagram for the final preparations.
"Ah, so you are under the same delusions as Mr. Harris here," said Crowe in a slightly condescending voice. "Magic is a science, not some all powerful supernatural energy."
"Then what do you call that," said Willow gesturing towards the red field that was surrounding the building. A part of her wanted to banish the jerk to a very unpleasant hell dimension, but decided not to. After all if she did she wouldn't have the energy to stop the Hellmouth from forming and the world would go poof.
"Advanced technology," responded Crowe. "You won't get rid of it doing some pointless new aged trick."
"Really," said Willow as she muttered a small spell that energized the components in the pentagram. Before Crowe's eyes the red glow began to dissolve, until no evidence remained that it had ever existed.
"For a magician, you are really closed minded. How 'bout you just sit the rest of this out, and let the real magic workers do their job," said Willow in the came condescending tone Crowe had used.
"This is 666, move in everyone, and remember what I said. Kill everything in there no matter what it looks like, there were no human heat signatures when the NRO bird took its pictures, that means its everyone outside the building that needs to be rescued," said Xander even as he tried not to laugh at the look on Crowe's face. Willow was definitely a lot more fun sense she came out of her shell.
Xander led over a dozen people into the building, knowing that a large percentage probably wouldn't make it out. Global Frequency may recruit the best, but even the best would have a difficult time fighting what was in that building.
The first death came at the hands of a vampire, a demon inhabiting the body of a five year old girl. Xander pushed the group on while he cursed himself, the agent, and the vampire evil enough to do that to a child.
After the first death the rest of the group followed Xanders orders to the letter, laying waist to the demons in the building. They got lucky, and only lost four more to serious injury by the time they reached the room where the main action was.
The red swirling vortex in the middle of the room filled everyone with a sense of dread. The feeling only increased as the bullet from a high powered rifle bounced off of the skin of a large black demon that was protecting the magic users.
"Okay people, blades only!" shouted Xander. He was afraid of this, and had hopefully prepared enough for it. The group he had brought in were experts in killing things; they were just used to killing people with guns, not killing demons with swords. The only person that looked remotely comfortable with a bladed weapon was a man that Xander had labeled 'scary old guy'. The fact that the old man almost looked happy as he split open a demons head with an ax only served to cement the image in Xanders mind.
"Willow we have about thirty minutes before the Hellmouth forms, and about forty before this town starts glowing in the dark. Think you can work your mojo here?" asked Xander as he took the arm off of a guard demon, and almost taking his own foot off in the process. He was slightly above average with a sword at the best of times, having just lost an eye, this was certainly not one of the best times.
"Make that twenty five for the nukes boys and girls," said Aleph from the cellphones strapped to each agent. "Apparently having The Boss ask for nukes freaked out the joint chiefs enough that they pushed up the schedule. I'm trying to get them to slow down by promising to cut off their balls, but it doesn't seem to be working. If you have any brownie points saved up from saving the world in the past, now is the time to use them."
Willow nodded to Xander, having come up with a plan of her own. Closing her eyes she opened herself up completely to the magics of the world, the darkness and the light. This much power would usually be a strain to her system, having it in her body so soon after the Slayer activation spell was killing her.
Willow barely registered Xander telling everyone to get down before she unleashed a pulse of magic that liquefied anything with demonic energy. She knew the effects would harm humans to a lesser extent as well, but didn't care at the moment. She the magic she had taken into her body had made her the embodiment of her Goal, and nothing else mattered.
Looking around Willow was surprised that the magic using demons were still alive. Apparently some of them had raised a powerful shield, stopping the pulse from affecting them. The Goal was incomplete, but not for long.
Raising her right hand Willow fired a beam of pure light at the shield, drilling through it as if it almost wasn't there at all. As the shield was about to collapse another demon, then another, left working on creating the Hellmouth to shield themselves from the force of nature attacking them. It didn't matter if every one of them worked on the shield, the Goal would be completed.
Soon a small hole appeared. It wasn't that big, only enough to fit a human finger through, but it was enough.
Raising her left hand Willow let tendrils of darkness spill from her and creep into the hole she had made. Tendrils were much better than beams of light; they can turn and twist around until they found some soft demon flesh to rip into.
As the last of the demons fell Willow heard the growing thunder of several jet engines. The Goal still had one more phase.
Letting the darkness flow into the portal to hell, making sure it stayed open Willow used the light to blast a hole in the roof. The light continued past the roof until it touched the warhead that had just been dropped from the aircraft, and guided it through the hole in the roof, and into the portal.
The bombs would detonate a couple of seconds after the portal closed, and the inhabitance of that dimension would live in fear of another portal opening into that dimension.
Xander was safe. The Goal had been accomplished.
And Willow fell into a pool of her own blood.
