Chapter 5.

The Stargate Command briefing room was rapidly filling up with the military and civilian crew that worked within the top-secret facility. The meeting had been called by General Hammond to discuss the future of the program. In light of the recent capture of SG-1 by Hathor, and their following escape, and after that the treaty summit organized by the Asgard, there were bound to be some changes and it seemed that this meeting would be how they would be planned and implemented.

General Hammond stood at the end of the room in front of a large projection screen showing the SGC logo. "Good morning people. We have a lot of work to do, so lets get to it. As of 0800 hours today, the President has ordered the expansion of the program to include another forty-five SG teams."

Most of the officers had large grins on their faces at this. With the extra manpower available to them they would be able to conduct more missions across a broader section of the galaxy.

"To accommodate all the extra manpower that will be coming into this facility the President has authorized the expansion of the SGC to include several more levels to be constructed within the mountain. These levels will include storage rooms, labs, armories, manufacturing equipment, hydroponics for food, generators, and vehicles for fast response teams."

The officers who had been grinning were being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of equipment that was slated to be brought into the command. It was astonishing but the equipment would be put to good use.

Jack who was sitting near the front of the room spoke up. "Uh...sir? did the President tell us why were getting all this?...I mean with Senator Kinsey's attempts to close us down I thought our budget was being tightened, not expanded."

Hammond nodded, it was a valid question, and it seemed that most of the officers present were thinking the same thing. "That brings me to the other thing that I received today in an official letter from the President. As of 0700 today, the United States of America is officially at war with the Goa'uld System Lords."

Silence greeted this statement. It was true that with the industrial power of the USA and military might behind them they had a better chance of defeating the Goa'uld, but it was the knowledge that the only way for the President to issue such a decree was for him to have used an executive order which would be later ratified by congress. If it weren't ratified then it would be an illegal order. This could prove problematic down the road but for the here and now it was great.

General Hammond continued to speak. "Also in the eventual situation of a major Goa'uld offensive against Earth, the President along with the Joint Chiefs has decided to begin construction of an Alpha Site on a hidden world far from the major empires of the Galaxy. This colony will be manned and populated by the men and families of two US regiments along with all attendant equipment. It is our hope to keep this colony a secret and for it to remain unknown."

The briefing dissolved after this into smaller groups each going over the folders that had been handed out during the session to discuss their future contributions to the SGC. Most would continue in their current jobs but some had their duties expanded well beyond anything that they had expected.

Since the attack on Earth by Apophis had let them capture two partially intact death gliders that were being studied to hopefully one day generate enough intelligence on their systems for the US to begin building their own versions of the starfighter. Until that proved practical it had been decided to create dedicated SG teams to attempt to steal Goa'uld vessels and ships from wherever they could find them. With the extra ships they would have more examples to compare against and hopefully create their own ships faster.

Colonel O'Neill who was reading his folder found something that surprised him greatly prompting him to ask his CO to see if it was true. "Sir, is it true that we're going to be using front line battle tanks and other such vehicles against the snake heads?"

Hammond who was busy answering questions turned to face him to respond. "Yes Colonel it is, with the proper modifications to the vehicles of course. "

"Sweet" Was all that the Colonel had to say in reply to that. His mind was busy planning out scenarios and missions that could be easily accomplished with that sort of firepower.

The Goa'uld had conquered thousands of worlds, seeded thousands of more with their slaves taken from Earth and were considered to be one of the most powerful races in the galaxy. But that would change once the Tauri started using their full potential and military might against them. There is an ancient curse on Earth, "May you live in interesting times" ...well the Goa'uld were about to learn the true meaning of this.

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Xander moved through the night not making a sound as he quietly stalked his prey. Two vampires were walking through the cemetery boasting to each other how they would kill the Slayer when they ran into her. To bad for them that they only had a few seconds to live. Before they even knew it the first's head was blown off by a three round burst from Xander's assault rifle. The other rapidly looked around trying to figure out what had happened and where it was coming from. He was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of his killer before he was decapitated in a single stroke.

So far it had been a slow patrol through the cemeteries, he had only found fifteen vampires but none that proved to be a challenge. Most were too stupid to even notice him until he opened fire. After taking a few moments to think he decided to head into the tunnels to start clearing out some of the larger nests down there.

Walking over to the nearest manhole he reached down with one hand to grasp it. With a simple flex of his enhanced muscles he ripped the cover up out of the ground nearly bending it in two with the amount of force he placed behind it. Xander made a mental note to himself to train more for small delicate tasks with his strength. He would have to be more careful in the future since he could probably snap a normal person in half if he wasn't careful.

Xander peered down into the darkness before grabbing a grenade off his belt. "Fire in the hole." He whispered to himself. Since there was no one around for him to speak to but it just felt right to say that. The grenade landed in the sewers before detonating with a muffled bang. The concussion grenade did its job and stunned the four large demons that had been walking by. Xander leaped down and hosed them all with a long burst from the assault rifle. He then proceeded to chop their heads off just to make sure that they wouldn't revive later on.

After making sure that the four demons were dead he quickly looked around to see if they had been carrying of value or importance. Finding nothing he melded into the shadows and begin hunting the denizens of the Sunnydale sewers.

He made his way through the extensive tunnel system carefully, killing any demons that he came into contact with. Xander didn't bother with Buffy's normal style of slaying by making quips and jokes, which could warn the demons that he was coming. He simply found a spot where he could to his full advantage the full power of his assault rifle and grenades. If he had warned them then they might have stood a chance or managed to escape him. This way no one could run.

Xander took a small breather to activate his comlink back to Alpha Base. "Cortana I need you to do something."

Cortana who was always monitoring the com frequencies from the MJOLNIR suit answered instantly. "Standing by. What do you need?"

"I need you to hijack a NRO bird and use its ground penetrating radar to give me a full tunnel map." Xander was busy mentally kicking his ass. He should have done this days ago.

"One minute. Attempting to interface with NSA satellite down link……… ……Interface established. It'll take about two minutes to get a full map. Stay where you are so I can focus it on your position." Cortana was busy keeping the people over at the National Security Agency from knowing that one of their precious birds was now no longer under their control.

Orbiting the Earth the Keyhole Satellite was slowly rotating off its previous mission of spying on Columbia when new orders were received. Small thrusters built into the bird rotated it so its ground radar mast was point at a specific point along the western coast of the United States. When it was locked into place the radar slowly began to peel back the layers of the Earth until it was getting a clear picture of tunnels, man made and natural, and caverns and other natural formations buried under the sleepy town of Sunnydale.

All this information was routed down to the NSA, which was intercepted and set through a dozen different routes to end up at the Alpha Base where Cortana began to correlate the data into something useful. Once that was done it was then transmitted down to Xander.

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Meanwhile Buffy and Angel were prodding along through the graveyard not really making any attempt at stealth. Both were overconfident in their abilities to handle anything stupid enough to come after them. This would probably eventually be their downfall but to date it had served them well.

"Its pretty quiet out tonight." Buffy pouted. She had been hoping for a little action.

"Maybe they're all busy fighting that Spartan guy." Angel offered trying to appease her. He said exactly the wrong thing.

"Ya I still don't understand why would this guy come to MY town!" Buffy whined. This was her town. She was the Slayer so she should be the one protecting it. Not some gung-ho idiot using guns.

Angel had nothing to say in reply to that so they just continued to walk in silence for a little while longer. Angel just happened to be looking down when he saw something that took his mind a few seconds to understand. "Buffy look at this."

Buffy looked down at the twisted pile of metal in front of her. "What is it?"

"I think it's a manhole cover. It was probably done by that Spartan guy."

"Well that clinches it. No human would have that kind of strength so he has to be a demon. So that means I get to slay it." With that she jumped down the manhole, Angel of course following her, and into the darkness.

"Ewww. Its disgusting down here." Buffy looked around hoping for some way of getting out of the nasty smelling liquid that sloshed around her ankles.

"Buffy I got four dead demons here. They've all been shot and decapitated. It would seem that the Spartan did come this way." Angel looked down at the bodies of the demons. They couldn't have been dead for very long. Their bodies hadn't even begun to dissolve yet.

"So which way do we go?" Buffy asked as she strained her Slayer senses to try and figure it out herself. But before she could figure it out Angel spoke.

"We go this way." He said while pointing down at a blood trail on the tunnel floor. Angel could smell the cordite and the scent of blood in that direction was the strongest.

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Down the tunnels Xander was busy reorienting himself with his new map. He figured that some of the larger caverns would be the locations of the nests and he headed in their direction. Tonight he would try and clear out at least two nests more. Since he only had two more grenades that would be all that he could take before he had to fall back to rearm. Mental note to get more grenades ready for another excursion he reminded himself.

Rounding the corner in the tunnel Xander stopped to use the light amplification sensors in his helmet to get a good look at what he faced in the next chamber. Fifteen demons clad in billowing robes were clustered around a roaring green fire. The instant that he saw the weird color of the flame alerted him to its magical origins. He would have to make sure to kill as many as he could as fast as he could. Mages would probably have the power to do serious harm to him if they got a spell off in time.

Xander reached into the backpack portion of his suit and withdrew a fresh magazine for his rifle. After loading it he slowly drew a bead on what appeared to be the leader, the guy with the most fancy robes, he locked the sight on the demons forehead. Xander took a deep breath, slowly released it and pulled the trigger. This sent a single 7.62mm armor piercing round through the demons head. The demons head exploded when the bullet went through it, the others stopped their chant to watch stunned as what remained of their leader fell to the cavern floor.

Before they had a chance to figure out what was happening Xander switched to full auto and began sweeping the cavern. He sent bursts of ammo towards any groups that formed, keeping them confused and scared he tossed a concussion grenade to break their spirits. The grenade bounced into the middle of the room before exploding sending the demons flying across the room into each other and into the unforgiving walls.

Angel and Buffy were slowly following the trail of blood and gore that coated the tunnels floor and walls. The sounds of rapid gunfire from farther down goaded them into breaking into a light jog. They could hear agonizing screams that cut off quickly. An explosion rocked the tunnel slamming them into the ground.

Xander had just finished off the last of the demons when his sensors told him that there were two more unknowns rapidly closing in on his position. He grabbed the rifle and latched onto his back drawing his pistols. The sensor pack had identified one of the incoming as a human so that could only mean that it was the slayer.

Xander was thinking quickly. Not wanting to be caught this soon into his rampage on the demon underworld he had to find away to disguise the armor. Buffy would recognize it the instant she saw it. As he paced back and forth his armored boot hit one of the demon corpses. One of the robed demons, he quickly began stripping the bodies of their robes which he then draped them across his armor hiding it.

"Cortana I have a slight problem here." Xander spoke quickly into the comlink. "Is there anyway to change the face shield coloring. Buffy would know its me the instant she sees that."

"Accessing MJOLNIR camouflage programs. The face shield coloring will be changed to black. Is that sufficient or do you want to choose your coloring." Cortana's voice had a slight sarcastic edge to it. Xander ignored it for now but he was going to find someway of pulling a practical joke off on her if it killed him. With the robes covering him he now looked a lot like the grim reaper, though one armed with two futuristic pistols.

Well here we go he thought as the Slayer and her pet vampire, as he thought of Angel in his mind, came running around the corner.

Buffy and Angel came to a halt when they entered the small cavern. The ground was covered in demon blood and body pieces. In the center of the room was a green flame, probably magical, that was slowly dieing down. With all the mage's dead and no power to feed it, it was dying. Standing behind the flame clad in billowing robes that looked similar to the demons robes was the Spartan. He was huge well over seven feet tall.

The Spartan spoke before she had time to say anything. "Hello Slayer, I see you brought your pet vampire out to play. What can I do for you this fine evening?"

Buffy looked a little flustered at Angel being referred to as her pet vampire but she moved past it quickly enough. "You can stand still while I slay your ass that's what you can do for me."

"And why would you want to kill me. I have done nothing to you or your friends. I've been out hunting demons and vampires which I believe is your job as well."

"You're a demon. No human could do that much damage and survive without getting killed so that means I get to slay you." Buffy retorted. She was wondering to herself why she was arguing with the demon instead of just kicking his ass around the room. But something was telling her that if she tried that she might not win this fight.

The Spartan tilted his head to the side as he digested her statement. "You think that I'm not human and that I should die for that. Well if that's your way of looking at things then kill the demon standing beside you. He's not human so why is he still alive?"

Angel looked a little shocked at this. He turned to face Buffy to see what she would make of this. Buffy's face was contorted with rage that this demon would dare to mock her, to try and use her own logic against her. "That's different. Angel has a soul. He helps me!"

"I have a soul. So that means by your own rules that you cannot hurt me or do you only make special exceptions for demons named Angel?" The Spartan replied sarcastically.

Angel moved around the fire to move up closer to the Spartan. "You don't talk to her in that tone. Apologize or I'll make you."

"Make me demon."

"Don't call me that. I'm not a demon. I have a soul!" Angel nearly shouted this as he came within arms reach of the Spartan.

Before Angel could react one of the Spartan's hands shot out and grabbed him around the throat squeezing extremely tightly. "You are as you have always been, a mere demon. Do not provoke me further. It is by my will alone that you survive this encounter. Be well advised to remember that." With that the Spartan threw Angel over the fire to slam into the ground beside Buffy.

"I have no quarrel with you Slayer, do not create one." The Spartan moved around the fire towards the tunnel.

Buffy merely stood there and watched him go. When he was gone she helped Angel back to his feet. "We should get back to Giles and tell him what happened."

Angel merely nodded at this. His larynx had been crushed so he couldn't talk at all. It would take a few hours before it was healed even with the speed of this vampire healing abilities. The two of them quickly made their way back to the surface in time to hear a large vehicle speeding off into the night.

Once back at the library Buffy began to tell the tale of how the Spartan threatened them and Angel. "He said that he had no quarrel with me and for me to not make one. He threatened me right to my face and he almost killed Angel. It has to be a demon."

Giles who had been mentally smirking at what happened to Angel spoke up at this. "You said that he proclaimed to have a soul. If that is true then he is not a demon. The Slayer spirit was created to fight demons not mankind. The council would take a very dim view of you fighting humans."

Buffy pouted at this but she knew deep down that if it came down to a fight between her and this Spartan guy it would not be an easy victory for her if one at all. "Fine but I still don't trust him."

"Well very good. We'll continue looking for any references to him in the books and if you see him again try to get some information on him. Anything at all would be good at this point." Giles said as he went back to his books. He had an extremely important prophecy to decipher tonight. Something about a White Knight and the champion who would become his bride.

Xander returned to the surface a few moments before the Slayer, having asked Cortana to send the hummer to his position, he got into the vehicle and sped off back towards Alpha Base. After arriving and locking the car down in the garage he went into the main room to speak to Cortana.

Cortana's avatar was scowling at something on the screen as he approached. "Something wrong?"

"Yes, Jenny cast several spells tonight to increase the strength of the wards and as I told you I was going to take some sensor readings on them to see what I could find out. But the scanners couldn't register anything happening at all. Its very frustrating."

"I guess science and magic don't go together. Where is Jenny anyway?" Xander asked as he looked around the empty room.

"I think she went to bed already. It is pretty late in the evening." Cortana replied. She was busy examining some records on the cloning experiments that had been conducted by INGEN. Some of the technology was centuries beyond what should be possible at this point in the development of mankind. She was determined to figure out from where they got it.

"Well I'm going to do some maintenance on the MJOLNIR suit then I'm going to head to bed." Xander walked over to a worktable that had been set up with all of the tools needed to maintain the armor and began to get to work.

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The next morning over in Boston Faith was having the time of her life. Linda had said that training would begin in the morning but she hadn't said it would be this much fun. First she had woken up and was able to have a hot shower, something that had been lacking when she lived on the streets. After that Faith had been treated to an all you could eat breakfast of eggs, ham, bacon, and toast. Food that good was something that she truly missed when raiding dumpsters and going to shelters to get something to eat.

Once all that was done Linda had taken her down to the full-fledged gym built as an addition to the mansion. It was here that Linda began to show her how to handle a sword in battle. The blade was a part of her and moved like it had been born to be held in her hands.

Linda stood off to the side as she watched Faith go through the simple drills that she had taught her so far. She looked somewhat like a child in a toy store when she had shown her all the weapons that she said she would teach to her. Faith had go to the swords and other bladed weapons right off the bat.

After several hours of sword training Linda called a halt to it. "Faith I think its time that I showed you the best weapon that you could use to kill demons." Linda brought out a small gun case and laid it out on a table. Faith stood close by to see what was in it. "This is a Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN. It uses a 5.7 mm bullet developed for Enforcement Units and Special Forces, and due to being designed to pierce military-rated protection, has enough force to punch through the natural armor of most demons out there. Now most hunters say that a .45 caliber is better but this is easier to conceal and carry. I'll take you down to the range and we'll test it out, ok?"

Faith nodded her assent and followed Linda downstairs to a small shooting range. "Now Faith you have to remember that a gun is a very dangerous weapon. Be careful about what you aim at, and don't go around just spraying bullets at a target. Most times only a single bullet is needed if you aim for the correct spot."

On the far end of the range wall was a variety of targets set up to resemble various demon races. Some areas on the demons body were painted different colors to indicate what would be a wounding shot and what would be a kill shot.

"Ok Faith now take the Five-seveN and aim down range. Since it's your first time using it I'll let you fire off a few shots before I start correcting any mistakes. This will give you a chance to get a feel for the weapon."

Faith again just nodded before picking the gun up and aiming down towards the first target. When she saw the first target her blood froze in her veins. Standing there was a cardboard cutout of a human wearing a long black leather duster and all black clothing. His face was one that had haunted her for so many years. The face of her mother's killer. He had a sharply defined face with bleached white hair that was slicked back.

Linda noticed that Faith had froze. "Faith is that him? Is that the one who killed your mother?"

Faith couldn't take her eyes off the target. "Its him. That's the bastard that killed my ma." With that she quickly targeted him with the gun and began firing at the cutout. All twenty rounds screamed down range and impacted tearing the cardboard into shreds. "Is that thing still alive, and if so where the fuck is he! I'm going to kill him for what he did to my mother." She screamed tears running down her cheeks. Linda swiftly drew Faith into a hug as she tried to comfort the distraught young Slayer. "Shhhh. Its ok. Yes he's still alive and I've already called the council to see what I could dredge up on him. He's called Spike and my contacts in the council are attempting to see if they can find him. But its going to be awhile before you face him, you should know that he has killed two Slayers in the past."

Faith stared at the destroyed remains of the cardboard cutout. "Well this Slayer is going to be the death of him. I swear it!"