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 TWENTY-ONE

Great Northern Forest – Pylea – May 2004

From the top of the hill at the dividing line between the forest and the rolling hills that dominated the landscape from there on they watched the dust cloud being kicked up by a multitude of advancing feet heading towards them. The rough dirt tracks of Pylea were being badly abused judging from the size of the cloud not being up to that volume of pedestrian traffic, especially when so many of the feet were equipped with claws that tore at the earth with every step.

A sixteen year old girl turned her radio headset on and switched it to transmit. 'GOOD MORNING PYLEA' she yelled into it. 'We're gonna rock it from the Scumpits to the GNF' she continued.

'Knock that shit off' Denise told her sharply. 'We're supposed to be professionals and it's not like they get the goddamn reference anyway' she pointed out. 'Just tell them what's going on' she ordered.

The girl grimaced, she thought everyone would laugh not bite her head off. 'This is Patrol Slayer-Three to all Papa-Delta-Foxtrot units' she began again. 'Be advised there is a large enemy column advancing from the South. Recommend you do not engage until the first cohort fords the river and they're committed. Over' she signalled then turned the microphone back off. 'That better?' she asked trying not to meet the gaze of her Patrol Leader.

'Just don't do that again newbie, we clown around in camp not on the radio' Denise told her. 'Screwing around in the field gets people killed' she chided.

'Sorry' the girl apologised feeling suitably chastened, especially given that she was only trying to fit in and she'd just failed miserably at that.

Denise sighed over-dramatically and shook her head, dumb rookies she thought sadly and raised her binoculars. 'Oh we've really stirred up a hornets nest this time' she noted looking at the horde of demons advancing up the road.

'How many?' one of the other girls asked nervously.

'According to the Intel we got from Lorne's spy network they've sent in everything they had from the other side of the Chase River and I can believe it' she replied using the name for the geographical feature that Cordelia had put on all the maps. 'That's two full legions plus a good chunk of Narwek's Militia on the march.'

'Which is how many?' the girl asked again.

Denise lowered her binoculars and grinned at the girl. 'Better than ten thousand' she answered. 'I guess they mean business this time.'

The girl blinked. 'Ten thousand?' she repeated in horror.

'So with Vi's sniper team on the hill over there plus us that's about a nine-hundred each and even if we didn't miss once we're not carrying that much ammunition' Denise noted thoughtfully. 'I hope your sword arm is nice and rested' she deadpanned. 'Gonna be sore in the morning' she added, rotating her arm around as if to limber up.

'We can't fight that' one of the girls stated, pointing in the direction of the advancing demon army.

'You're perfectly correct young lady' Stirling agreed, finally making it up the hill thanks to his sword stick and the occasional assistance of the slayer carrying most of his personal equipment including his own rifle. 'We're here to observe and support the Pylean Defence Forces in their first major action' he continued. 'They've clearly made quite the psychological impact already because otherwise the enemy wouldn't be going to such lengths to stamp them out before they provoke the entire world into armed insurrection.'

Denise indicated a handy tree stump that the old watcher could sit down on and he did so gratefully before accepting her offer of her binoculars. 'Think the PDF boys can hold them Sir?' she asked.

Stirling took a better look at the advancing army. 'Have you ever heard of the Battle of Omdurman?' he asked, continuing to look through the lenses and not expecting for a second they actually would have. 'Fifty thousand native Sudanese fought against a British force a fraction of the size at the end of the Nineteenth Century, at one point the Sudanese launched a direct head-on attack of over ten thousand troops straight at the British lines in an attempt to overwhelm them.'

'What happened?' Denise asked.

'None of them got within fifty yards' Stirling replied evenly. 'Overall the casualty rates in terms of deaths for that battle were over two hundred to one in favour of the British' he continued. 'Spears against machine-guns is not a recipe for military success and even a spear has more range than a set of teeth' he noted.

Stirling changed the direction he was pointing his binoculars in and watched as the Pylean's prepared themselves for the onslaught down in the valley between the two hills where the slayers were positioned. The Groosalug had been itching for a stand-up fight instead of the small scale raids they had been running until now and he was going to get his hearts desire today the old watcher decided.

They had a respectable number in the field down there, nearly four hundred fully trained plus another hundred of so partially trained in reserve so they were outnumbered just over twenty to one. The PDF volunteers were around fifty percent human in number and the rest was made up of various native demon clans with the Deathwok in the preponderance. The latter had proven to make surprisingly good soldiers once Ashton persuaded them to dump a few traditional chivalric values in favour of Earth style military professionalism, ruthlessness and human patented sneakiness. The red-horned demons empathically enhanced hunting skills made them expert scouts and trackers and they were typically stronger and more resilient than humans too.

Twenty to one, Stirling considered, watching a mixed group of humans and demons in identical camouflage clothing building a barricade, their rifles leaning against a small tree nearby. 'Well at least we can say that whatever happens we have got the Maxim-gun and they've not' he noted. 'Or the AK-47 at least' he added with a chuckle.

'Sorry Sir?' Denise asked.

'Line from Kipling' Stirling told her. 'English poet' he explained. 'The Maxim Gun was the type of machine-gun used at Omdurman, in many ways it epitomised the latter days of the Empire' he continued. 'You can apply quite a lot of Kipling's verse work to our current situation, especially if you change the odd word' he said then took a deep breath.

'When you're wounded and left on Pyleas dread plains,

And the demons come out to cut up what remains,

just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,

and go to your God like a slayer.'

Denise chuckled. 'Sound advice' she agreed. 'Any others?' she asked.

'Oh masses my dear' Stirling replied, 'but I think you'll appreciate this one "the female of the species is more deadly than the male".'

'Well that's just stating the obvious' Denise replied wryly. 'Whose turn is it to fire the mortar?' she asked looking around as one of the girls raised her hand. 'Just don't shell Vi's team or the PDF by accident, they'll be pissed about it if you do and Vi gets pretty cranky if she's receiving incoming friendly fire.'

'I'll make a note' the girl replied with a grin and pretended to write words on an imaginary pad. 'Do… not… blow… up… chief… gunslayer' she said in time as she did so.

'Where's Jay and Silent Bob?' one of the other girls asked, the nickname for the two mercenaries had stuck and spread to the new girls as well.

'Perković is over there with Vi and Ashton is down in the valley keeping an eye on the locals' Denise replied. 'That's another good reason not to accidentally mortar the Pyleans because if he lives he'll shoot you on basic principle.'

Stirling stood up and stretched out his legs before he got too comfortable in his improvised rustic chair. 'Having been on the wrong end of my own sides high-explosive attentions on more that one occasion myself I can readily empathise' he said. 'In late '44 some American prat in a fighter-bomber strafed my company three times until we gave up trying to signal him and started shooting back to get him to go away' he told them. 'Another time the blessed Royal Artillery nearly blew me to bits when they shelled the wrong coordinates' he said. 'Strangely enough it's not so bad when it's the enemy trying to kill you, you can accept it more readily as an occupational hazard, having your own people do it however is simply infuriating, you feel like tracking them down after the war and throttling them.'

Denise laughed. 'Did you?' she asked.

'No but in the unlikely event I ran into them now, assuming they aren't dead of old age, I might club them over the head with my stick' he said holding it up with a smile. 'I might look like an old codger, but upstairs I'm still the livid twenty-year old laying in a muddy ditch getting machine-gunned by some dozy berk in a US Army Airforce Thunderbolt' he continued. 'I might absent-mindedly forget where I put my blasted reading glasses these days but some memories will stick with you the rest of your life in vivid detail trust me' the old watcher told them. 'In fact I can feel my blood pressure rising now thinking about it.'

A few of the girls laughed. The old man could be quite formal sometimes, but he was better out in the field and he told some great stories.

'Some of those demons are very large' another said in a Dutch accent looking through the telescopic sight on her rifle. 'Four metres tall at least, some close to five' she added.

'Good thing we gave the Pyleans all those bally Russian RPG's then' Stirling replied wryly. 'Let's see how scary those demons are when they're looking down their ugly noses at a rocket launcher.'

'They say Buffy once blew up some kind of big bad super demon with a rocket launcher' Denise noted. 'It's tried and tested at least.'

'Definitely come a long way from sharpened sticks in the last few years' Stirling observed.

'Nostalgic for the old days?' Denise asked.

'Don't be daft' Stirling replied. 'We should have been doing things this way for years' he stated, shaking his head sadly. 'Council was always too full of reactionary fossils to grasp the need to radically rethink our methods' he said. 'I was shooting vampires in the face with my trusty service revolver, or riddling them with holes from a Sten sub-machinegun then staking them when they were too hurt to fight back properly way back in the Nineteen-Fifties but they still insisted on viewing anything more advanced than a crossbow as being against tradition.'

'They'll be in mortar range in a couple of minutes' one of the girls noted. 'Are we going to say hello?' she asked with a vicious smirk.

'We'll wait until there's a big concentrated mass of them and they're already taking fire from the Pyleans' Denise replied. 'Make every round really count.'

'There you see' the old watcher responded. 'That's how it's supposed to be done' he concurred. 'Give the buggers an object lesson in why they should be wary of humanity, they might be evil but after ten thousand years of trying to kill each other in wars we've become quite adept at the process and we've got the tools to match' he continued looking down into the valley. 'Well having reworded Kipling today why not Tennyson' he said then took another deep breath.

'Mortars to right of them,

Snipers to left of them,

AK's in front of them

Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they marched and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Marched the Ten Thousand'

Denise turned to make sure the mortar was being properly set up as the old man spoke. 'So if the mouth of hell is of our making then maybe we're the big bads?' she wondered.

'I'd wager a months pay that they're certainly starting to think so' Stirling replied, indicating the slowly advancing demon army. 'Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do and die.'

Denise considered the old mans words. 'Cool' she said.

Hyperion Hotel – Los Angeles – May 2004

Giles tapped his pen against a glass of water in front on him on the Conference Table to get everyone's attention. When that failed miserably he picked up a thick leather bound book next to the glass and dropped it back onto the table with a loud thump which did get everyone to stop talking. 'Thank you' he said sardonically. 'Now if we can get started I think Illyria for one would like this to be a short meeting' he said, receiving a nod of thanks for his recognition of her dislike of staying still in a room too long from the Old One herself. She was already starting to feel them closing in and although she fought against it eventually her claustrophobia always seemed to win out over her willpower.

'We can open the door if that would help?' Buffy offered realising what Giles had meant by that. In some ways the God-Kings phobia was one of her more endearing traits in Buffy's eyes it made her seem far more human although she doubted Illyria would view that as a plus.

'I am fine for now' Illyria replied. She did not appreciate her embarrassing psychological weakness being discussed even if she was certain that the slayer only meant well by the offer. 'Your concern is noted… and appreciated' she added gaining a look of approval from Wesley sat next to her.

Faith grinned. 'She's getting polite these days' the slayer opined. 'I guess Guinevere is rubbing off on you with the Limey manners' she continued. 'You getting Blue skin patches yourself Wes, two-way street kind thing?' she asked with a chuckle,

'My Wesley does not appreciate that puerile nickname, desist from using it or I may give you blue patches of your own' Illyria responded menacingly, 'along with various contusions to accompany the bruising' she added.

'Okay now there's the girl we all know, love and occasionally lay awake at night worrying about' Faith replied. 'Okay I'll behave now' she told Buffy who was directing a look of reproach in her direction.

Giles pushed his glasses up his nose, they had slid down them slightly as he reviewed his notes, and he pointed at the first item written on the agenda. 'Firstly might I say how nice it is to have Wesley at these monthly meetings again after his time spent on Pylea' he began 'and also to formally thank him for his work there.'

'Thank you Rupert, it's nice to be home, or at least as home as Los Angeles qualifies' Wesley replied. 'I was also very happy to see that the world had not fallen to rack and ruin in my absence, except that is for the mystery of where my Dart Board went' he continued, looking from Giles to Spike, it had to be one of them he decided, the colonials were highly unlikely to have taken it.

'I'll bring it back' Spike told the watcher. 'I just got this hankering for a game and I knew you had one.'

'Never big on other people's property rights were you Spike' Angel told him with a smirk.

'Which of us shagged the other ones woman?' Spike retorted. 'Giving Drusilla one is a bloody sight worse than borrowing this scruffy sods dartboard' he declared.

'You slept with Drusilla' Buffy exclaimed looking at Angel in horror, 'Drusilla is your girlfriend?' she continued, looking at Spike.

'This was over a hundred years ago' Spike told her. 'Don't get your knickers in a twist love.'

'Ancient History' Angel said.

'No statute of limitations on pinching another blokes piece of skirt' Spike responded. 'Once a wanker, always a wanker' he declared.

'Do you wish the two of them rendered unconscious?' Illyria asked Buffy seriously.

Buffy weighed up the offer. 'If they don't stop squabbling right now yes' she replied.

Spike and Angel together looked at Buffy and then at Illyria who was now wearing her patented "I'm going to get to hurt something" smile. They both immediately went silent and tried to look inoffensive which resulted in Illyria pouting instead.

'Moving on' Giles said ignoring them all, 'Xander's latest report from the Shadow Valley project shows it to be ahead of schedule' he said. 'Much of the existing underground network of tunnels and caverns has been reinforced and is being expanded into the desired bunker complex which we will construct both the Academy and the Headquarters facilities on top of' he told them. 'In addition the digging of the large canal, or should I say moat, that will surround the entire facility also continues apace.'

'I still think we should have gone for the minefield' Wesley opined.

'We agreed to the hidden pill-boxes with the anti-tank guns and the Surface-to-Air Missile battery didn't we?' Buffy asked, rolling her eyes.

'I suppose' Wesley replied reluctantly.

Giles sighed. 'On the subject of weaponry Anya has completed her analysis of the proposal to establish our own manufacturing capabilities and the obvious conclusion is establish a small armaments and munitions factory in the Peoples Republic of China where production costs are lower than in the West and we wouldn't have to worry so much about legal action resulting from patent violations' he told them.

Buffy crossed her arms. 'Even if we pay the workers well above the going rate for staff there and give decent benefits we will still be financially better off to the tune of over fifteen million dollars a year' she told them, 'plus we get to make anything we want with limited interference from the Chinese Government as long as we pay our taxes and bribe the right officials' she said. 'We've already got a few Chinese slayers who can help run the operation and use it as a base of operations for the country so it's a good choice from that perspective too.'

'Our dubious friend Emil the arms dealer has put us in touch with various unscrupulous individuals he has contact with within the PRC and we should be able to get the enterprise off the ground and supplying our armaments needs before the end of the year' Giles told them.

'Surprised Emil would give up our custom that way' Wesley responded with surprise. 'If we can manufacture much of our own weaponry he loses a paying customer.'

'Yes but he's gaining a supplier that gives him a discount' Giles responded. 'As long as he only sells our excess production to his legitimate customers we'll be selling arms to him for once and he has agreed the terms, apparently there are plenty of opportunities to make good money off legal arms sales at the moment.'

'I would imagine that the situation in the Middle-East is driving up the costs of ammunition purchases at the very least' Wesley theorised. 'Well if we're going to be in a position to make our own equipment there are plenty of things I can think of.'

'Such as?' Giles asked, making notes.

'Well for a start we might want to consider re-chambering our standard issue rifles from 5.56mm to the new 6.5mm Grendel round' Wesley told him. 'It hits much harder, with a third again as much muzzle energy and it has better ballistic qualities so at long range, say over five hundred yards its superiority is even greater than that.'

'Grendel?' Giles queried with a wry smile.

'Yes there is that too' Wesley admitted.

'Okay what don't I know here?' Faith asked looking from one watcher to another.

'Grendel was the name of the monster Beowulf defeated in the poem named for him' Spike told her. 'First great work of Anglo-Saxon literature, borrowed heavily from pagan tradition but with a Christian spin on things' he explained then began to recite a passage.

'Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better

to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.

For every one of us, living in this world

means waiting for our end. Let whoever can

win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,

that will be his best and only bulwark.'

'Great so now I've got the vampire flaunting his education in front of me too' Faith complained. 'But I kinda like the words' she told Spike.

Buffy smiled at the blond vampire, he really put passion and feeling into reciting poetry and did it very well. He smiled back feeling pleased with himself, maybe he really should write her that epic love poem he had threatened her with before.

'6.5 millimetre Grendel' Wesley said again. 'Using one monster to slay others has a definite appeal to my way of thinking' he continued with a smile of his own. 'We should be able to modify our G36K carbines to fire it without too much trouble, they've done it before with other rifles originally designed for the same ammunition we're using now.'

'I'll let you run with that' Buffy told him. Say what you like about him the guy really knew his guns. 'So how are we getting on with the preparations for Berith's arrival?' she asked Giles.

'We're preparing for the worst' Giles told her. 'Kennedy and Stephen have arranged accommodation for the additional personnel we're sending to Cleveland next week and we should have another two scythes ready by then.'

Wesley crossed his arms. 'I'm sure that someone has already raised this point but are we sure that scythes will be effective?' he asked.

Faith looked at him askance. 'I've kicked some Demon ass with mine and even your girlfriend is scared of them, what more do we need to know?'

'Well for a start has anyone considered the fact that we know Baal Berith can turn base metals into gold and that the scythes are in fact made of metal?' he asked.

Giles felt his jaw drop open. 'Oh bloody hell' he swore.

'So it hadn't occurred to any of you then' Wesley responded smugly. 'Pure gold is fairly soft you know' he pointed out. 'Not going to keep its edge very well' he noted.

'Maybe all the enchantments and shit will mean he can't do it to the scythes?' Faith remarked.

'Certainly a possibility but better safe than sorry' Wesley responded.

'Ceramics' Giles said randomly.

'I'm not hungry' Illyria told him. Crockery wasn't as nice as a good Taco or Burrito but it made a decent snack even if eating Wesley's Cup that time had been a major mistake she was still paying for.

Giles rolled his eyes. 'No I mean Emily has a knife made of ceramics so it doesn't trigger the metal detector they have at her school' he told them. 'Maybe something like that?' he suggested.

'Ceramics are made from clay which is a mixture of materials which does include metals if only in the form of various compounds with silicate hydroxides' Illyria responded. 'Fred's memories' she explained when everyone looked at her.

'Kevlar and carbon fibre' Wesley said. 'No metal in that stuff' he said. 'It should be tough enough to deal out some punishment especially if we throw some magic into the mix.'

Buffy grimaced. 'Any prizes for guessing Medousa's reaction when we tell her we need her to power up a plastic scythe?' she asked.

'Let me tell her' Giles said quickly. 'Oh for the love of God please let me tell her' he begged.

Note from the Author:

This fanfic runs on reviews.

...okay so I was feeling poetical, please don't think too badly of me I don't do it very often do I:-p