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 EIGHTEEN

Great Northern Forest – Pylea – April 2004

'Let me go' the girl screamed, trying to struggle free but unable to do so with four other slayers holding her down on the ground.

Denise reached over and slapped her round the face which got her undivided attention despite the nasty gash in her leg that had already soaked though the material of her fatigues and was now dripping blood into the dirt. 'If you don't keep still you'll just open your leg up even more' she declared before ripping the material to reveal the extent of the wound. 'Okay slap on the hot iron and we'll sort out the next one' she told the slayer kneeling behind her heating up the tip of a large bowie knife to glowing red with a small blowtorch.

'Please don't' the girl being held down pleaded.

'Pain is just weakness leaving the body' Denise told her. 'Now bite down on this' she added sticking a leather strap in the girls mouth before the red hot metal was pressed against the wound with a stomach churning sizzling sound and the whiff of scorched flesh as the wound was sealed closed. They'd already given her a shot of morphine to relieve the worst of the pain but it would have still hurt like hell.

Wesley looked down. 'You'll be fine' he told the girl who had tears in her eyes as they let her go. 'You won't even have a mark on your skin in a couple of days' he reassured her as Denise covered the scorched flesh with antiseptic gel and started to bandage it up.

Denise winked at her. 'I got a bullet right through my leg and you'd never know' she told the girl. 'Consider this your official welcome to Pylea' she added as Wesley headed off.

'Got the final tally Sir' Ashton announced, jogging over to Wesley and saluting. 'Eighteen wounded, four seriously but not life threatening, at least not to a slayer' he reported. 'One dead' he added regretfully. 'Medics just lost Kimberly' he explained.

Wesley mouthed a silent obscenity and started walking across the corpse strewn battlefield with Ashton following half a step behind. 'She only just got here' he said angrily, pausing to kick the corpse of a large demon in the ribs.

'Usually the way Sir' Ashton replied. 'Didn't know when to take a step back and got a spear in the guts, ended up in her spine, it's a pity she didn't die straight away' he opined, 'would have saved her a lot of pain.'

'They gave her morphine I hope?' Wesley asked. A number of the girls had been trained up as combat medics and they should have made the young girls last few minutes as tranquil as possible.

The mercenary nodded. 'Plenty' he replied. They had drugged her up to the eyeballs.

'Good' Wesley told him. Get enough of that stuff in you and you felt bloody marvellous regardless of how badly hurt you really were, he knew that from experience.

Most of the girls were still moving across the battlefield looking for signs of life amongst the enemy. Where they found it they finished them off quickly, it was partially to keep up their reputation as stone killers amongst the opposition but was also a mercy in many cases, they were in no position to look after the demon wounded even if they wanted to and better a quick death than slowly bleeding to death.

The new intake were clearly less comfortable with the process than the experienced girls and many were reluctant to simply follow suit when they saw a veteran slayer plunge her sword into a wounded enemy soldier, be that enemy merely a demon or not, and they weren't all demons.

Lucy used her boot to roll the body of a large furry demon over to check what was underneath and found herself looking at the terrified expression of a man wearing the black fatigues of a Wolfram and Hart mercenary soldier who had been cowering beneath. Her rifle snapped up and levelled itself at his face, her trigger finger half pulled as he started to shake uncontrollably. 'Please' he begged, 'I surrender, please don't kill me' he pleaded.

'Got a live one' Lucy called out loudly, 'human' she continued. 'Are we taking prisoners?' she asked coolly, keeping her weapon aimed and her eyes fixed upon him.

'You're not going to kill him are you?' one of the newer girls asked nervously.

'Waiting for confirmation on that' Lucy replied evenly. 'They're here to kill us rookie, don't go getting sentimental about the bastards.'

'But he's human' the girl protested, 'and he's surrendering.'

Lucy smirked. 'Yeah we find it easier to never give them a chance to do that' she replied. 'Roll a grenade in before they put their hands up mostly' she continued. 'Of course I'll give them some credit, they've usually got more guts than this asshole' she added disparagingly.

'Summary execution of human prisoners will not be a feature of my command young lady' Stirling declared, walking towards them.

'Guess it's your lucky day' Lucy told the Wolfram and Hart soldier. 'Get up, and put your hands behind your head' she ordered. 'So much as twitch and I'll blow your brains out' she told him seriously. 'There's a wire garrotte in my left jacket pocket' she told the new girl. 'You can use it to tie his hands together, wind it tight so if he struggles it'll cut his wrists to shreds' she ordered.

Stirling looked the black clad mercenary over as he got up. 'It's amazing what people will do for money' he said with a sigh before putting on a serious expression. 'Listen up boy' he told the prisoner, 'I might not support shooting you out-of-hand but if you attempt to escape I'll shoot you in the back myself' he declared, tapping the holstered pistol at his hip. 'I've killed plenty of men who I would hold in higher regard than a wretched traitor to his species like you' he stated.

'I haven't hurt anyone' the prisoner declared, as the girl started to bind his wrists. 'I only got here last week as a replacement' he told them. 'The money was just too good, they're paying four times normal salary to come here' he explained.

'The money's that good because we keep killing you guys off as fast as you're replaced dipshit' Lucy retorted. 'Mess with the best, die like the rest' she declared. 'Find his guns and bring them along, they might be worth keeping' she told the new girl. 'Not all their stuff is crap.'

The elderly watcher looked around. A few girls were starting to sort through the various melee weapons the demons had been carrying, mainly concentrating on the swords in case they could be of use. Any that were too crude or damaged were being dumped into piles for destruction and Stirling watched with some mild fascination as Illyria had found another use for Glory, having her snap the unwanted weapons over her knee, often several at once, leaving heaps of broken blades in the Hellgods wake.

For her part Illyria was walking back from the vicinity of the overturned armoured personnel carrier with the heavy machinegun from the turret over her shoulder and carrying the boxes of spare ammunition for it under her other arm. A slayer finished recovering the crews personal weapons and as a parting gift threw an incendiary grenade into the back of the machine which soon started blazing away as it's internal fixtures caught fire. The remains of the men who had been inside got a better funeral than the rest of the enemy who were going to be left to rot in the sun, there's no point making an example if you don't leave plenty of hard evidence behind for the ones you're trying to influence.

'We're heading out in fifteen minutes' Wesley announced. 'I want any girl who can't move under her own steam carried and I want a volunteer to carry Kimberly because she's going to get a proper burial back at camp' he told them. 'If you haven't got anything to carry already go find Rika and Jailbait and help them carve up the dragon' he ordered. The worst thing possible, especially for the newbies would be to let them stop and think about it all, far better to keep them active and distracted, and besides which dragon parts were good money, if they could keep knocking one down every couple of months or so the Pylean War would actually be making a Net profit.

Wesley noticed an ornate dagger in the dirt and bent down to pick it up. It must have belonged to one of the demon officers and he examined it carefully, it wasn't a good design in terms of practically but it would make a decent souvenir he decided and pocketed it. A couple of the girls had adopted a more gruesome collecting habit and he guessed the one over yonder was using the pommel of her short-sword to smash out a demons fangs for a necklace or something. He couldn't exactly say he approved but he wasn't going to try and stop her, for one thing it would have been incredibly hypocritical given the kinds of trophies his own girlfriend was known to collect.

He was due to return home in a weeks time and Wesley wondered how easy the adjustment would be, both for himself but especially for the girls returning with him. The way things were done here was so different to the slayer life back home there was bound to be plenty of friction between the returning gunslayers and the girls back home not to mention arguments over tactics and methods. He hoped he could help them, and he would try as best he could, but Wesley doubted it would go smoothly, life rarely did.

Well at least some of the pressure was going to be lifting here soon, Wesley thought, the first company of the new Pylean Defence Forces would be taking the field against the enemy in the next couple of days with numbers expected to rise to three companys, around six hundred native Pylean human and demon troops, by the end of May. Some of them would have been in training for nearly three months by the time they saw action which put them in a different league from most rebel armies, they were now fully used to their new weapons, trained in small-unit tactics and had proper military discipline installed to bolster their personal desire to get back at the invader.

Wesley smiled, they weren't gunslayers by any means but there was still something extremely intimidating about the thought of a large number of the Deathwok Clan coming at you with AK-47's. Their initial resistance to using such a dishonourable weapon was quickly fading in the light of its apparent effectiveness, and of course the fact they really seemed to like the sound the things made. The Groosalugg had done good work in helping form the collection of demon and human rebels into a cohesive unit despite the racial tensions, he was a better motivational speaker than most people would give him credit for and he had respect from all sides, his mixed heritage helping bridge the species gap as much as his stirring calls to unite as Pyleans and fight the foreign occupier shoulder to shoulder.

'Wellington said that nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won' Stirling told Wesley, interrupting his chain of thought.

Wesley nodded. 'Given the choice I'll take the latter every time' he replied. 'You can get over depression easier than defeat.'

Stirling looked around. 'And to think we used to worry about a few vampires when there were demon armies like this lurking behind the dimensional curtain.'

'If you'll forgive the phrasing we're doing a sterling job of depleting their numbers' Wesley replied with a smile.

The old watcher nodded. 'Hard to dispute that notion' he agreed. 'The buggers can't keep taking losses on this scale without starting to feel the pinch.'

'And then we go looking to the next dimension I imagine' Wesley noted, 'and then the next after that, unceasing warfare for centuries, millennia perhaps.'

'Chances are I won't even be around for the victory parade on this one' Stirling replied wryly.

Wesley shrugged. 'I suspect the only person who'll still be around at the very end will be my ever affectionate and violence-enthused demon-deity of a girlfriend' he said. 'I imagine it will all be terribly anti-climatic for her.'

'When Illyria saw the breadth of her domain she wept for there were no more universes to conquer' Stirling joked.

'If she slept the thought would keep her up at night' Wesley responded. 'She thinks very long-term you know.'

The two watchers observed the girls going about their bloody business quietly for a while until Wesley spoke up again. 'So I hear that you gave Medousa a damn good rodgering?' he asked, trying not to laugh.

Stirling looked annoyed for a few seconds then smirked. 'When endulging in sexual congress with figures of supposed myth better a good rodgering than a good arthuring I suppose' he retorted.

Wesley looked at him in confusion, maybe the old boy was going senile he wondered.

Hyperion Hotel – Los Angeles - April 2004

Gunn yelped as he hit his fingers with the hammer and grimaced with the pain. He couldn't figure out how Xander had managed to make this carpentry stuff look so effortless but with him gone off to lead the Shadow Valley construction project somebody had to carry out the basic maintenance of the building and Gunn liked to think of himself as handy with tools as well as an axe.

'That hurt did it?' Spike asked, sticking his head around the corner looking into the room where Gunn was trying to make a new storage cabinet. 'I guess that thud I heard followed by the scream was you mashing your thumb.'

'It ain't too bad' Gunn replied shaking it off.

'Why not just buy one and get it delivered?' Spike asked.

Gunn rolled his eyes. 'You can't buy racks for grenade launchers on eBay and they were all out of eBad' he retorted.

Spike shrugged. 'Just a suggestion Charlie-Boy' he replied. 'We expecting a new shipment from our quasi-evil arms dealer then?' he asked.

Gunn nodded and tested his fingers, they were bruised but nothing was broken apparently. 'Another shipment going to Pylea and some extra hardware for us to keep here' he replied.

'The chippy makes it look easy doesn't he' Spike asked with a smile.

'Chippie?' Gunn queried.

'British slang for a carpenter' Spike explained, 'Xander I mean.'

Gunn sighed. 'I think his hands are smarter than his mouth' he declared. 'I watched him completely fix a room from the floorboards up faster than I can finish this cabinet' he said sadly.

Spike chuckled. 'Jesus was a carpenter' he pointed out. 'God's probably got a special place in his heart for them, can't hurt to have friends in high places' he opined then a wry smile spread across his face. 'Ironic that a chippy was executed by being nailed to two pieces of wood when you think about it' he added with a grin.

'Getting towards blasphemy there' Gunn told him.

'Carrying a demon' Spike pointed out. 'The man upstairs should make allowances.'

Gunn smiled. 'Guess you'll find out one day if he does.'

'Hoping to get myself a guaranteed pass for the Holy Gates first and I'm well into debit on that score' Spike replied.

'You're a believer then?' Gunn asked.

'Been burned by too many crosses not to be pretty certain there's something in it' Spike replied. 'I can't say I'm a monotheist though, the bibles wrong on that score, I've already met and been personally beaten up by two lesser Gods and those ones Willow prays to seem to have some truth to them as well' he continued.

Gunn picked up the hammer again. 'I asked Giles about that once and he said it was all down to a mistranslation' he told Spike.

'Yeah?' Spike queried.

'Yeah' Gunn replied. 'In the original books of the Old Testament, like Genesis I mean, it doesn't say "The Lord God" it says "The Lord of The Gods", it was just mistranslated into English.'

'You're kidding?' Spike responded in surprise.

'Nope' Gunn replied. 'That's what he told me and the man knows his stuff, God, I mean Jehovah the real deal, might be infallible but that doesn't mean the guys who wrote it all down were and I can live with that' he said.

Spike smiled. 'If people were more relaxed and less dogmatic about their faith like you are there would be a lot less trouble in the world.'

'Believing in God doesn't mean you've got to turn off your brain' Gunn replied. 'So are you going to help me with this or just stand there stopping me working all day?' he asked sardonically.

'I'm not holding any nails for you' Spike replied, taking off his duster and handing it over a nearby chair. 'If you can hit your own hand you're not safe with mine.'

'Oh come on' Gunn retorted, 'you're a vampire it's not like it'll cause any lasting damage.'

'Temporary pain is all the deterrent I need' Spike told him. 'And I don't want to see any long sharp pieces of wood flying about when you start cutting timber' he stated seriously as he got down to help work on the cabinet.

When Buffy looked in ten minutes later she couldn't help but grin at the sight of Spike working with a jigsaw, his short peroxide blond hair full of sawdust and a look of fierce concentration on his face as he cut small wooden blocks to size. He wasn't very good at it but it was nice to see him do something so ordinary, just doing some DIY around the house like a normal guy on his day off.

She considered asking him to cut some stakes while he was at it but he clearly wasn't much good at carpentry and that might have gone against the grain both figuratively and in reality she thought, laughing at her own joke which caused Spike to scowl because he thought she was laughing at him when he looked up. He was trying his bleeding best wasn't he? Buffy made amends by going away and returning a couple of minutes later bringing them both a cold beer from the refrigerator. Beer might be bad but it made a great peace offering sometimes. The slayer drew the line at Spikes request she make him up a nice pint of blood with a dash of otter and vole for flavour though.

Spike made a mental note to get Knibblet to make him up a packed lunch with a thermos flask full of her finest blend for later on after the sun went down after Gunn got him to agree to help fix a small leak up on the roof. A working man had to keep his strength up right?

Anyhow, getting to berate Angel afterwards for not getting off his fat lazy arse to help out, and him having to just sit there and take it, was worth a few hours of anybody's time Spike decided happily.

Note from the Author:

This Fanfic runs on reviews.

Nb. If anyone is interested in seeing what some of the gunslayer weaponry looks like, go to my profile page, click on the link to the Compelled Series over on Twisting the Hellmouth, and then take a look at "Gunslayer Gear".