Everything either belongs to Joss or it should, no infringement is intended and no profit is to be made. When you get right down to it I'm not really worth suing anyway unless you want a share of an underpaid civil servants wages and it just wouldn't be worth the hassle trust me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hyperion Hotel – Los Angeles – February 2004

Gunn rubbed his palms backwards over his shaven head and breathed out slowly. 'Didn't think I'd ever be in trouble with the Federal Government' he said, barely able to come to terms with the new situation. 'LAPD sure but not the DOD, CIA and whoever the hell else is probably watching us now.'

Cordelia looked around the room, all the original Sunnydale crew were there as were the Angel Investigations crew minus Wesley who was still in Pylea and thus blissfully unaware of what was happening back home Ignorance really is bliss Cordelia thought to herself feeling a migraine coming on that might reach the heights of her old pre-demon vision days. 'This is all your fault' she told Illyria accusingly, 'why can't you just play nice with people' she asked angrily.

'I did play nice' Illyria replied evenly. 'I caused no mortal injuries and as soon as they unfroze our accounts I told them exactly where I dumped their gold bullion' she pointed out. 'They initiated the conflict, I merely pre-empted its escalation' Illyria argued. 'In the original timeline things were allowed to get badly out of hand and that was another grievous mistake I sought to rectify here' she told the group. 'As always my actions are determined by a desire to not repeat the errors I witnessed before.'

'Give Blue her due' Spike rhymed. 'She didn't bite off more than she could chew.'

'And the reason William Pratt is not talked about in the Pantheon of English poets with William's Wordsworth and Butler Yeats becomes evident' Angel told him.

'To which scorn I reply; "screw you",' Spike responded gleefully. Got him again, hook line and sinker he thought happily. The two of them had originally planned to be off finding Drusilla but their departure had been delayed by the government intrusion so now they were going tomorrow instead. One of the teams fleet of vehicles was now fitted with necro-tempered glass so they could travel in daylight which would be an experience in itself but Spike had already been planning to amuse himself on the road-trip by trying to send Angel as loopy as Dru.

Faith swallowed the handful of peanuts she'd just thrown into her mouth and looked around. 'I'd just like to say that once again Blue didn't make with the info and everyone except her is out of the loop' she said. 'Oh yeah it was real funny when I got turned into a fucking Sesame Street extra but you're not laughing now are ya?' she asked, reaching for a glass of water to wash down the peanuts.

'But couldn't you have tried something less drastic than stealing a gazillion dollars worth of gold bars?' Willow asked, reasonably she thought.

'I did not steal anything, I merely relocated it' Illyria corrected her. 'They needed a demonstration of power and got one in a manner that would get their full attention' she declared. 'By now they will have realised that I could have done far worse' she told the group, 'it would have been easier in fact for me to have assassinated their entire military or civilian leadership than what I actually did do' Illyria noted. 'Security camera footage from Fort Knox will demonstrate not only my ability to open portals but also my strength, speed and resilience' the God-King continued. 'They will be extremely cautious in their dealings with us and we will at least not have to contend with having our personnel seized and detained for fear of retaliation in kind.'

Buffy couldn't resist a wry smile. 'Before Riley left Illyria told him if they kidnapped any of our people the next time the government had to announce Vice President Cheney was in a "undisclosed location" it would be because the only people who knew where he was would be us.'

'They would find it difficult to retrieve him from Vahla ha'nesh' Illyria interjected, 'and he would at least have Ben on hand if medical assistance was required' she added, having considered that a possible issue.

'I'm surprised you didn't threaten to terminate George Bush' Angel declared, sitting in his chair, arms crossed.

'Threatening the President in that fashion would be a criminal offence' Illyria told him.

'You're kidding' Xander exclaimed. 'You're worried about breaking the law?' he asked incredulously.

Illyria shook her head. 'It would be more accurate to say I am trying to minimise the number I am compelled to break' she responded. 'There are in fact very few rational reasons for conflict between ourselves and your government and I see no benefit in increasing them' she stated. 'Most of the problem is caused by their desire for a monopoly of power, which is understandable though short-sighted, and a degree of paranoia in your society which seems to have been badly exacerbated by the World Trade Centre attacks' she said then paused. 'I did however offer them an olive branch which may help relations and lead to an eventual rapprochement between us.'

Buffy chuckled. 'You'll love this' she told them. 'She offered to sabotage North Korea's missile and atomic weapons programs. I was expecting her to say she'd bring them Osama Bin Ladens's head in a box next' she added, shaking her head sadly.

'I don't know where he is' Illyria responded apologetically, it would have made a valuable and welcome peace offering. 'You may baulk at assassinating humans but I have no particular issues with it' she told Buffy. 'I do not kill them without major provocation because I have agreed not to do so and it helps me in my relations with yourselves, but I am not foolish enough to apply an absolute such as no killing of members of your species regardless of circumstances' she declared. 'In any case with my own abilities, and the shells knowledge of physics and engineering, I could easily infiltrate North Korea and make the failures look like accidents and design flaws rather than espionage. It is not difficult to ensure a long-range missile will fail in flight or an atomic test does not achieve its designed yield.'

Willow frowned. 'I don't think we should be getting involved in politics like this' she opined.

'Nobody is asking you to' Illyria replied. 'You may freely maintain your noble façade of an ideologically pure mission if you wish' she told her. 'I will make sure that the politics does not get involved with you' the God-King declared.

'This all seems very well planned out' Angel observed sardonically. You often got the distinct impression that you were being played like a puppet by Illyria and conversations such as this helped confirm the suspicion. She was a God-King with a plan and she knew too damn much for comfort.

'Of course' Illyria replied. 'It was extremely likely this situation would arise and I long ago determined a course of action to respond to it.'

'Surprised you didn't arrange a takeover of the government' Cordelia said sarcastically.

'I do have a workable plan for achieving that if necessary' Illyria responded. 'It would involve using a magical device similar to the one used to swap the consciousness of Buffy and Faith, I simply portal in a volunteer to the White House who then swaps bodies with the Commander in Chief' she explained dispassionately. 'Knox is sourcing such a device through his contacts just in case.'

'Holy shit' Gunn exclaimed. 'Even Wolfram Hart were only trying to get the demon Senator bitch re-elected' he noted. 'Blue here trumps that easy.'

'My contingency plan for if I ever need to mobilise NATO to deal with a full scale demonic invasion is more inventive' Illyria told him appreciating what she took for praise. 'You people have never really considered some of the things you could achieve if you thought outside the box' she told them. 'When I say you think small it's more than merely the megalomania you ascribe it too' she continued. 'While you worry about the minor problems I have been gradually formulating solutions to the major ones.'

Buffy stared at her. 'You're not being serious?' she asked. 'It's the Napoleon Complex writ large' she said remembering her psych courses, 'delusions of godhood.'

'I am a God' Illyria replied with clear amusement written across her face at Buffy's amateur psychology. 'My sanity is only in question if you anthropomorphise me' she told the slayer. 'Do not let the shell fool you, I am not human and neither do I aspire to be' she reminded her.

'Okay hotshot' Xander declared deciding to test her. 'World War Three breaks out and the missiles are flying' he said. 'What do you do?'

'Assuming even minimal time to prepare, portal sand or other debris into Low Earth Orbit to form a cloud that would smash the warheads en-route' Illyria told him. 'I could not guarantee full success if it was a full scale exchange but it would certainly reduce the death toll significantly.'

'Creative' Fred told her. Feed her enough of Dawn's blood, they had started to refer to it as D-Juice with the D standing for either Dawn or Dimension, and Illyria could instantly portal more payload into space than a hundred space shuttles could manage in a year. It wasn't exactly high-tech SDI stuff but it would get the job done.

Illyria leaned back in her chair. 'It is a pity that the shell is still too unstable to permit large-scale use of your sister's plasma as a power source' she told Buffy. 'I could achieve great things if I were not so weak.'

Buffy narrowed her eyes. She was going to definitely be having words with Fred about how she was getting on with making that Mutari Generator gadget for depowering Glory. One day they might very well be needing it for bringing Smurfette down to a more manageable level too.

Needless to say Illyria already had plans to deal with that eventuality. In her preferred one Buffy got to live as it happens but life didn't always turn out completely for the best, even if you were intent on screwing with destiny like the universe was your bitch.

It would likely take the government a while to collect themselves, Illyria considered, the situation was too far outside of their experience, and in the meantime there was still a war to fight and the voluntary era was drawing to a close, it was time to start conscripting people when required and Drusilla was merely the first on the list. Once she was recovered and they had a seer on the staff it was time to expand the magically gifted contingent, Willow was overburdened with work, and they needed to draft themselves another powerful witch to bear some of the load.

The Shaper of Things fully expected Amy Madison to be a reluctant team member but she was confident she could be talked, or if necessary pummelled, into service.

Great Russell Street – London – February 2004

Roger Wyndham-Pryce looked at the slayer in surprise. Not only had she been correct in her answer, when he checked the latest addition of the slayer handbook she had quoted the relevant passages back to him almost verbatim. 'Very impressive' he told the girl who smiled in response. They had decided that she as the assigned senior slayer, and himself as head watcher here would meet regularly to discuss issues that may arise although he saw it as also an opportunity to test her knowledge of the craft.

'I was always good at the book stuff' Molly replied.

'And the physical it seems judging by my observations of your sparring with the other girls' Wyndham-Pryce noted.

Molly shrugged. 'Most of them weren't in watcher training before they got activated' she pointed out. 'I've just got more experience and the time I spent training with Buffy and Spike before too many other potentials turned up in Sunnydale helped a lot' she added.

'Yes I imagine that having a vampire with a history of killing slayers teach you how he did it would have a certain utility in terms of teaching you counters to such moves' Wyndham-Pryce replied evenly. There was some logic there but it remained a distasteful notion in the extreme he thought. As of Molly, despite her outlandish mode of dress she was in fact extremely bright and conscientious he had been happy to learn and at least she was English thank God albeit of a working class background unfortunately.

'They've asked me to help write the next edition of the handbook as it 'appens' Molly told him. 'It's going to be a total revision' she continued. 'New chapters on using small unit tactics and firearms too' she told him. 'I'm dead chuffed' she said proudly.

Ignoring her appalling grammar and slang Wyndham-Pryce nodded. 'A worthy choice I'm sure' he told her. Her written reports were in fact truly top-notch, he had been surprised to find that the new slayers actually operated a far more organised and comprehensive reporting system that the Watchers Council ever used, with each girl submitting a detailed report on every mission or patrol they went on which was then entered on a secure database linked back to a central server in Los Angeles. It didn't really fit in with his pre-conceived notions that under Buffy Summers leadership everything would be slapdash, in fact in many ways the Council itself had been slapdash and archaic by comparison. Supposedly the Knox character that worshipped Illyria was designing a secure PDA for each slayer to carry which contained the handbook in electronic form and could download and display species data on every known demon type in a few seconds. Such a gadget would help alleviate the problem of watcher shortages apparently but knowledge was no substitute for wisdom Roger Wyndham-Pryce considered of the idea doubtfully.

'Paris next week?' he asked the slayer.

'Just for a few days to put the fear of God and pointy sticks into the Froggy Vampire community' Molly told him. 'We've already put the locals in their place so I reckon its time to start clearing out the continent.'

Roger Wyndham-Pryce nodded his agreement, operating in teams of three the nine European born slayers who had come over from America had carved their way through the vampire and demon community of London and the Home Counties in a veritable blitzkrieg since their arrival. More slayers were due to arrive next month as they completed field training and plans were being made for sub-offices in Paris and Berlin and a full-sized one in Rome intended in part to make sure that the Wolfram and Hart offices there were kept nicely in check. The budgetary situation was simply unprecedented, once liberated from the legal limbo they had been in after the bombing of this very building the liquid assets of the old Council had been handed over to the people in Los Angeles and the investment returns on their ever expanding portfolio was simply ludicrous. After asking for a sum of petty-cash to be arranged for covering unexpected expenses to be kept at the office, a safe had been promptly purchased and delivered and then stocked with the equivalent of half a million US Dollars in both Pounds Sterling and Euro Banknotes. Wyndham-Pryce had only been expecting a cash-tin with a couple of hundred pounds in it at best and assuming it was a mistake contacted that rude but efficient Anya person who then got completely the wrong end of the stick and told him if he needed a larger sum she would have to get Buffy to sign off on the transfer of funds because she was only personally authorised up to a million "bucks" herself. In the end he gave up and in an unusual display of exuberance took a few pounds from the safe to buy doughnuts and pastries for the secretarial staff.

Dealing with the odious chap who turned up two days ago saying he was the European Distributor for somebody named "Emil" and do they need to put in an order had been more distasteful. That the man was clearly a criminal was obvious simply from looking at him and Wyndham-Pryce had been about to tell him to leave before he called the Police when Molly arrived and gave him a list of highly illegal military hardware which they would like to be imported. The circles they dealt with now were simply abhorrent and he wasn't going to be seduced into accepting them by mere money and success. It wasn't just winning that counted, it was the way you played the game that mattered, and this whole business once again sank of the corruption being wrought by the influence of the foul Illyria who having successfully robbed his own son of both his senses and dignity was now seducing the Council itself. It was an obscene Siren that sang to them with promises of money, power and success and he needed to be on his guard else he might be tainted as well.

Despite it all he couldn't help but like his new furniture though, the special chair was very good for his back and the heavy oak desk far more imposing than the one Quentin Travers had when it was his office.

Great Northern Forest – Pylea – February 2004

It was just another hit and run raid for the first five minutes once they got into position and prepared to launch an assault on the fortified camp which the occupation forces had placed on the crossroads in order to control travel and trade between two of the larger towns, a small tin mine to the west and the big agricultural area to the south. Demons from Sebassis Army inspected passing traffic and seemed ill prepared to fight.

As such things tend to develop if they've been properly prepared the first thing the slayers knew about the ambush was when a burst of fire from a concealed position among some rocks cut across the path of one of the girls as she moved for a better view of the camp and sent her spiralling away in a splash of her own blood as three bullets caught her in the torso and punched straight through both her camouflage jacket and the chain-mail vest she was wearing underneath. The mesh of tiny steel links would stop the slashing cut of a sword but they wouldn't do much to stop a supersonic piece of copper-jacketed lead and she hit the ground hard starting to cough up her own blood thanks to a hole in her right lung.

No sooner was the first slayer felled then a storm of gunfire opened up from several directions. The Wolfram and Hart mercenaries sent to Pylea only numbered a few dozen so far and they couldn't be deployed to more than a handful of locations because if they divided into too small a set of teams they'd be badly outnumbered on the ground by the slayers so they had set up in a few key spots and waited for the girls to get around to attacking one of the places they were guarding.

Garrison duty however was boring and tended to make you sloppy which is why one of them had fired early after three weeks sitting around doing absolutely nothing. They couldn't even practice their shooting because the noise it would make would give away the secret and they weren't as sharp as they were when they first arrived thinking they might be going into action straight away. Still they were well trained and experienced and unlike the rabble the slayers had been fighting until now they were properly armed with automatic firearms not swords and clubs.

It was fully expected that the slayers would panic at the first taste of gunfire and they would either run or fight back inexpertly being untrained and untested in such a situation and the Wolfram and Hart troops dug in around the area in concealed bunkers and trenches were confident of success and earning their bonuses. They might even get to have some fun with any prisoners they took, after juicing them up with something to subdue them of course, you wouldn't want to try screwing an unwilling slayer otherwise, if she got the chance she was strong enough to snap your neck like a twig.

There was however a few factors in play that the Wolfram and Hart mercenaries were unaware of. Firstly some of the slayers had been shot at before, they had been involved with the LA gunbattles with the vampire gangs six months ago and it therefore wasn't a whole new experience to them and they knew keeping your head in a firefight was more likely to keep you alive than anything else, secondly slayers move a lot faster than ordinary people and they dove and got into cover quicker than might have been expected of them and thirdly they weren't the only mercenaries in the field.

'Bella's hit' one of the girls yelled.

'What the fuck is going on' another screamed. 'They're shooting at us. Since when did demons carry guns? Who are they?' she yammered.

'All of you shut the fuck up and do exactly what I tell you' Ashton bellowed into his microphone headset. 'Whoever they are they fucked up because they should have killed half of us in the first volley but they didn't so they're fucking crap and we're not' he told them in a clear unwavering voice. 'We're okay where we are, trees and undergrowth for cover and we're not surrounded' he told them. 'Not only are we going to get out of this we are going to kill each and every one of those motherfuckers' he promised.

'But they're shooting at us' one of the girls moaned as bullets flew past her head.

'So fucking well shoot back' Ashton responded, some of the girls were already doing exactly that and it was a good thing they all had radio earpieces in their left ear or nobody would be able to hear him over the rifle reports. 'All of you do exactly what I say, and when I say it or you will die, do you understand?' he asked. 'DO YOU UNDERSTAND?' he bellowed.

'YES CAPORAL-CHEF' the slayers yelled back, their voices ringing out above the gunfire, the enemies and their own.

'That's better' he told them. 'Now keep you heads down but look around to see if there's a better position you can get to and when I tell you get there as fast as you fucking can and keeping as low as you fucking can' he ordered. 'Anyone that doesn't have anywhere else to go I just want you to fire off a full clip towards those bastards and don't worry too much about aiming just spray and pray' he said with a calmness that somehow helped take the edge off the situation. They all knew the mercenary knew his job, hell he'd probably been shot at hundreds of times and he wasn't dead, he'd get them out of this they started to believe.

'I think Bella's dead' she's stopped moving. One of the girls announced.

'Janko' Ashton said. 'How you doing?' he asked seemingly ignoring her.

'Nearly got one in my sights' the Croatian mercenary replied emotionlessly, lining up his shot. He had been moving around himself ever since the shooting started, Ashton hadn't even bothered to ask, he knew what his friend would be doing.

'When you do blow his fucking head off for Bella' Ashton told him. A second later the crack of Perković's sniper rifle could be heard over the other shooting.

'Done' the Croatian said evenly.

'Alright girls here we go' Ashton said. 'We're going to kill them because they're trying to kill us and I'm not dying on this fucking planet and I'm definitely not getting taking prisoner and ending up getting chopped up for demon food' he declared.

'Fuck that' one of the slayers responded, clutching her rifle like a talisman.

'Kill 'em all' another said.

Ashton inwardly smiled, that's what they needed to get them through this he thought. 'WHAT MAKES THE GRASS GROW?' the mercenary howled.

'BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD' the girls bellowed back. Adrenaline starting to flow, turning fear into determination, anger and rage.

'Fucking A' Ashton responded reaching down to his belt. 'We're going to flank them left and right, put the bastards in a crossfire and pin them down' he declared then lifted something up towards his rifle. 'Then we go in and clear them out' he announced snapping it into place and turning towards the slayer laying closest alongside who was staring at him her jaw dropping, he winked at her and grinned. 'Now repeat what I say and take a deep breath because I want you to ring this out loud and clear so the bastards can hear you' he told them.

Watching the engagement from the fortified stockade down by the crossroads the Wolfram and Hart officer frowned. They had botched the ambush because some idiot had sprung it too early and the damn slayers were shooting back with a lot more enthusiasm than he'd been expecting.

A hollered phrase echoed amidst the gunfire as an order was given and repeated with a thunderous chorus of voices bellowed out at the top of their lungs.

The closest demon to the officer, one of a half dozen that were also based here tapped his shoulder to get the man's attention. 'What does it mean this battle cry of "Fix Bayonets"?' he asked quizzically as the black clad mercenary again flinched in response to the words.

Note from the Author:

"No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy" - Napoleon Bonaparte

Oh yes and this fanfic still runs on reviews ;-)