Part 4,

Finn was standing on the gaping hole that used to be Sunnydale, California. Spike was right, when the First wanted to Nail Buffy, it was planning to take out everything in a fifty-mile radius to get her. Illyria who was standing next to Spike had changed her wardrobe some to fit the occasion. Somewhere that girl had a red leather cat suit, between how it was cut and how Blue was moving in it, he could said this. Anyone who was going to make a superhero movie or create a new costume for the X-Men would have to take a note of how this girl had her costume designed.

"Spike do you know where the battle with the first went down?" Finn said as he looked around the huge crater.

"Yeah it took place in the Hellmouth right under the high school." Spike said as a soldier pulled a handheld PDA that had a grid of all the Old Sunnydale buildings overlaid on top of an image of the crater their position was marked with a red pulsing light on the screen and handed to Finn.

"Okay that means we are looking for what is left of the old University campus." Finn said as Spike and Illyria looked at the screen as well.

"I sense Magic in this place. Old Dark Magic. It feels older than me." Illyria said as she summoned a battle Axe.

"Blue don't worry pretty much everything evil here got splattered." Spike said as Illyria's head suddenly spun around in a direction behind them and disappeared like a fart in the wind. Then there was a sound of a tree exploding which got everyone's attention. Quickly Spike and Finn raced over to see Illyria holding some demon that looked like a cross between a basset hound, and Shiatsu, a melted wax candle and Mike Myers playing Fat Bastard after he had gone on the Jared Subway diet giving him the aptly name Vigina Neck.

"Help, I've got a really pissed of Slayer who wants to chop me up with her freaking Battle Axe." The Demon yelled as Spike moved to see who it was.

"Clem???" Spike said seeing his old Neighbor from the Grave Yard.

"Spike, could you tell this kind Slayer here that I'm not a threat." Clem said as the various flaps of skin he had looked like they were sagging more as he struggled against Illyria's iron grip.

"Illyria could you let go of my friend here?" - Spike said as he moved by and put a hand on her arm and she didn't flinch.

"Spike you know leather Amazon Goth Slayer Babe here?" Clem said as he looked at Spike as Illyria started to sniff at Clem.

"Yeah I know Illyria here. Clem, so what are you doing here?" Spike said as Illyria still had the baggy flesh demon pinned down as she debated about whither or not he was useful.

"Well if you tell your friend to let me go, I'll tell you." Clem said as Illyria let go of him as she gave him the look of stern warning.

"Sheesh what is her problem?" Clem said as Illyria's eyes shifted from their human blue tint to a more glazed over demonic appearance as Illyria used her powers to morph the battle axe she had and changed it to something that looked like a cross between an Arabian Scammer sword from Ale Baba and the Forty Thieves and a Klingon Crescent Bat'leth Sword.

"We had a good friend of ours attacked in the Hos'ital and she is kinda of close to him." Spike said as Clem just looked at him then towards the team of commandos standing with their assault weapons raised at him.

"Spike, I thought that when Buffy and her Army Slayers decided to nuke the Hellmouth, Nothing survived." Riley said as he looked over to the edge of the crater.

"Well considering that most of the demon folk around here didn't want trespassers coming here. I mean the nasty fold who want the deep dark stuff." Clem said as he started to move past a tree at the edge of the crater and the cavernous scene transformed. Where the edges of the crater showed nothing, the edges started to change and buildings started to appear around the edges of the crater. Some of the buildings looked like they had been scrounged up from various structures. A wall from a four-bedroom ranch style house, another from a Victorian style and so on and so forth. All of the buildings looked like this and there were a lot of them, a whole lot of them.

"Clem how long did it take you guys to rebuild this place. I mean between the battle Buffy, the Potentials did against The First, the place was thoroughly nuked." Spike said as Clem moved forward and guided them into the remnants of the city.

"Well, the residents that didn't get run off by the First and took refuge away from the Hellmouth slash the blast zone. Decided to start and rebuild the town." Clem said as Illyria started to follow them into the Cliffside build village that had sprung up.

"I don't understand, Sunnydale was reported to have fallen in due to a collapsed Sink hole." Finn said as he started to look around at some more of the buildings and started to see a mixture of Sub-T's Humans and what looked like Human and Sub-T hybrids. "Heck when I was first stationed here, I saw a news report stating that a series of sinkholes had opened up. Heck old Xander fell into a collapsed section of the City while he was doing construction." Finn said as he noticed that several of the residence had started to gather around them.

"Yeah well all that is all and good, but we have to deal with something else." Spike said as he started to but in. "We are here to find out if the little lab experiment your old boss cooked up is still sealed in that concrete tomb your superiors put it in. That and the fact that we are here searching for the same guys that attempted to skewer Gunn." Spike finished as Clem decided to butt in.

"Wait a minute this is about that incident that went down in LA a few days ago? Whoa... Now I thought learning that the First had decided to set up a nest under the town was bad... Now I think I'd better introduce you to Reynold and Gloria. Because they had a run in with a few guys with large eighteen wheeler trucks." Clem said as he moved down the block and opened the door to what looked like to be the Local diner.

"Clem what do you mean by eighteen wheeler trucks?" Finn said as he Spike and Illyria entered the diner.

"Well I'll let Gloria fill you in. She and Finch the guy that runs this place are kinda of dating. Heck after the sink hole happened Finch almost had a brain aneurysm when he found a completely naked blond chick come out of what was left of the sewers." Clem said as Spike noticed Finch the Snitch. Buffy's old informant to the demon community who ran a bar in town.

"Spike, old buddy. How are you doing, I heard from a bud in LA that has his own bar there? Finch said as Spike turned around to see him and some blond carrying so many boxes that that his and her faces were obscured." Finch said in his usually slimy way.

"Okay, Mind that I help your girlfriend with those?" Spike said as he moved over to help the blond. But the moment he got close enough to sniff her as he removed a box so that she could see. He saw a face he didn't want to see in a long time. "GLORY... You Skanky bitch mother. I'm going to kick your Trashy Goddess butt and send you back you belong." Spike said as he pulled out a sword. Glory fell backwards with a look of pure fear in her eyes.

"No. No. No. The blond beat up man from my dreams, he was saved by the woman in two places. Then the blond beat me with a hammer. A Sister... a Key... I think... Now the man in the nurse's garb that my had goes through, he says, you killed me and I killed you..." Glory said as she started to squirm against the wall as Spike moved through the boxes that lay spewed all over the floor. "No, I will leave the girl in the green dress alone. I will heed the words of the man I cannot see." Glory said as she started to cry. "Finch...." Glory said as she just shook on the floor. "Can you ask your friend to leave or tell me why I am having flashbacks to my death and of a non corporeal person that tortured me before the roof fell down on Sunnydale?" Glory said as Illyria moved over and sat down beside of her and spoke in a language that was almost unintelligible to the human ear, but Glory seemed to understand it. "How can I understand you? Finch thought that I was some Slayer with amnesia, but am I something else?" Glory said as she was attempting to process some information in her mind.

"I spoke in the language of my people." Illyria said as she took off a glove and started to stroke at the woman's cheek with her blue nailed thumb.

"So am I one of your..." Glory was scared yet calmed by Illyria's actions.

"I think you are something of a descendant of my people. More Watered down yet just still as powerful." Illyria said as compassion and understanding came to her eyes. "Tell me of how you got here, and of your first memories." Illyria said as Finn moved over and sat down at a table and Finch reached and got Glory a glass of water.

"Well the first thing I remember is that I was laying naked on some stone alter underground and some blond guy that seemed not to touch me seemed to be chanting. He felt Familiar yet it felt like I was looking at my own body from outside of it." Gloria started to speak as she started her tale. What Spike would learn from the three hours of listening to this woman was that she had paid for whatever crimes she had committed against Buffy. And Illyria told her that both her and Glory's worlds were gone and this was their home for their rest of their existence.


"This is where I saw the four eighteen wheeler trucks parked at." Gloria said as she moved down the hill in dirty well grimed up blue jeans, mud encrusted hiking boots and a somewhat clean jacket.

"Easy there Luv, you're moving a bit fast." Spike said as he looked at the reformed Former Goddess.

"I know but if it is of such great urgency then I know that whatever was buried here, must be dangerous enough to drag one of my kind out of L.A. to protect the guy she is in love with." Glory said as she looked up at Illyria and helped her over an outcropping of rock.

"Gloria," Illyria said to the other former Goddess. "How do you feel? I mean learning that your home realm is gone?" Illyria said as Gloria paused for a second and thought hard about it.

"Well I had this feeling that I was stuck away from home and I wanted to get back." Gloria said as she took a deep breath and let her shoulders sag down. "But learning that you could open portals and one of the realms you first visited was my home. I don't want to go back considering that whomever killed my people in a wholesale slaughter might come after me; I don't want to meet my end again since I have been given a second chance... If this is going to be home, well I have to take care of the friends I have made here and start a family." Gloria said as Illyria started to flashback to her first days of being awakened in this time.


No this cannot be, my army is gone. They are all dead... No one I know of has the power to slay so many of my chosen warriors. Illyria thought as she collapsed to the floor of her once mighty temple. All gone, my temple is destroyed. Illyria's mind was just numb as the images before her eyes and the feeling of loss started to sink in. That was when she heard the sound of one of the Champions of the Humans approach brandishing the weapons the humans called a Gun.

"My world is gone." Illyria said sensing that these were her last moments as the human Sorcerer called Wesley aimed his weapon towards her head and cocked it back ready to take the life of the creature that had sucked and devoured the woman he loved from the inside out.

"So is mine." Wesley said as a lone section of loose masonry finally gave away after centuries of water, wind and pressure and fell. Wesley was distracted by it impact. Illyria froze a moment of time and looked at the pain in his eyes. They were like her new ones she was looking through. In pain. That moment Illyria had to know how much of her empire had fallen. So using what strength she had she opened a vortex and leaned forward and fell through it. Part of her wanted to fall to her death and let all end that was when she hit the vortex and fell through the fluxing images of the realm her temple was in and towards another place of her kingdom. That wasn't when she hit a lake of water.

Illyria turned and pushed with her will to get out of the chilling water as she modulated he form so it was more aquatic based with fins and flippers. Swimming through the latke she thought she had landed at one of her palaces that was until she looked down to see he place underwater. It took hours for her to get into it then she found that this place was also put to ruin. Illyria at that moment started opening vortex after vortex to all of her five other kingdoms. Each one she found destroyed, laid to waste and infested with the muck that she and her kind scraped off the bottom of their appendages. When she reached the final realm her kind ruled over she found descendant beings of her kind which only had a fraction of the power they did, looked like they had been crushed a very powerful force just recently. What ever force had crushed her kingdom had obliterated all traces of her people. That is when she fell down on the ground.

"My Kingdom... All gone.... Crushed to dust by the winds of time and by forces I do not know of." Illyria said as she burrowed her hands into the dirt by the crushed pillar of a once mighty temple that held her name. "My name is nothing... I am nothing... I have no people to which to belong to.... All I have in this existence is this Small Shell..." Illyria cried as numbness started to set in. She sat there for hours just attempting to digest her place in this world. That was when she went deep into thought. This shell would have to do, the warriors she had gone up against. One of them had considered this Shell as his world and she had taken it from him. She needed a guide to help her. She had fallen, she would not fall again so leaning forward she knew she had to learn to walk in this new reality that was her life now. With a wave of her hand she leached onto the vessel in which she had been held for so long and went there to find her answers.

Illyria walked through the place the Shell had worked and unsure about the smells and sensations she was experiencing. There in the Shell's workplace she saw the being known as Wesley packing up items that belonged to the Shell. Illyria decided to get closer to be heard but she stayed a good distance away so not to be threatening to Wesley and she spoke.

"I have no where to go. My kingdom is long dead. Long dead. There's so much I don't understand. I've become overwhelmed. I'm unsure of my place." Illyria said as she attempted to get some sympathy like the living muck that had held up a sign asking for money for food she remembered from walking to her temple with Knox. Wesley just held his ground as he put more items into the box.

"Your place is the with the rest of your people: Dead and turned to Ash." Wesley said as Illyria sensed that he knew the answer to her questions, he even knew before her arrival at her temple that it had been destroyed. She needed his help and she would yield for a time but she had to learn or else she was good as dead.

"Perhaps... but I exist here. I must learn to walk in this world. I need your help..." Illyria decided to lean on his loss as well over her claiming of the Shell as her own. "... Wesley." Those words had gotten Wesley's attention and he turned towards her. Illyria just stood her ground.

"If I were to help you find your way... you have to learn to change. You mustn't kill." Wesley said as Illyria started to question why he was telling her this.

"You killed my Qwa'ha Xahn in defiance of your leader." Illyria said remembering that Wesley had killed Knox where he stood during Angel's speech about his defense of humanity.

"He murdered the woman I love." Wesley said with acid and pain in his voice.

"And that made it just." Illyria questioned as she started to dig into why Wesley would give her such an order even after he had disobeyed one from his half-breed leader.

"No. It wasn't just. I'm probably the last man in the world to teach you what's right." Wesley said in defeat as he himself was attempting to sort out his own actions.

"But you will. If I abide, you will help me." Illyria said, as she knew that like her this being, Wesley was hurting like she was.

"Yes." Wesley answered as Illyria wondered if he had chosen this on his own, or was it some way to feel that had had gotten part of his world back.

"Because I look like her?" Illyria said wondering what she had done to commit this being to aid her even after she killed the woman he loved.

"Yes." Wesley said with one-word answers as Illyria moved over to the Sarcophagus and placed her hand on it attempting to regain some sense of her lost world.

"We cling to what is gone. Is there anything in this life but grief?" Illyria questioned as she attempted to find her place in the world and Wesley gave her an answer that in the future she would take to heart as she attempted to find her way.

"There's love. There's hope... for some. There's hope that you'll find something worthy... that your life will lead to some joy... that after everything... you can still be surprised." Wesley said as Illyria stroked the stone with her fingers as she chewed over what she would do next.

"Is that enough? Is that enough to live on?" Illyria wondered as the images of how much of a selfish domineering jerk she had been around Wesley and the others before the battle. Would she have let him know that Fred or a part of her was alive in herself? Now it was too late for Wesley, but for Gunn she would be open and tell him everything. It was the only way...


"Illyria, you okay." Finn said as he looked into Illyria's eyes. "You look like you are attempting to grasp the moment." Illyria just snapped back to reality.

"No." Illyria said as she reached up to her eye and rubbed a tear out with her finger. "Just trying to deal with that Gloria is from one of the realms I used to know." Illyria said as she moved down another set of rocks of the pressed path they were using to get down into the crater. "I think I brought her some closure knowing that this is her home now, and that her and my people knew each other, from a long time ago." Illyria paused for a moment to think. "She is only the second maybe third being from a realm I knew of that is living in this world. What if others got out or escaped to this world from the ruins and slaughter I had found."

"Well Wars tend to displace people all over the place, some just find places that will take them in and for the most part they have to work at least trying to find their way." Finn said as he looked at the blue of Illyria's eyes. "'Hey my best friend in High School was born from the Mae Long people of Vietnam.

They got displaced between ethnic persecution and the fact that the government did not like the fact that they got friendly with the American service men. So when the fall of Saigon happened and the Americans pulled out, the Mae Long got on the transport plans and ships and headed off to the states." Finn said as Illyria started to soak this information in.

"So what happened to these people?" Illyria said as she turned to move down the path some more.

"Well they joined the military services, mainly the Marines, but a few others joined the Army. While I was stationed here in Sunnydale one of my colleagues was from their and his cover was teaching Micronesian, Vietnam History." Finn said as Illyria turned around again to face him.

"So, this warrior society became integrated into your own?" Illyria said as she started to think.

"Yes they have. Illyria what is it? You don't approve?" Finn said wondering some about her.

"No, it is the fact that I am a warrior and one of your soldiers had called me a Slayer: and now I am living in their domicile learning their ways." Illyria said as she chewed over it. "So I feel glad that I am not the only being that has been displaced and has chosen to make a home, though reluctantly like me Gloria has become warriors of these beings. I had to make a choice to help after I had my powers stripped, she does it due to the fact that she is alone." Illyria said as she moved towards where Spike was looking.

"Well that is good. I think..." Finn said as he moved up on top of a rock to view the scene blow.

"Bloody Hell." Spike said seeing several black figures below.

"Spike what is it?" Gloria said looking at the excavation site near of what used to be the U.C. Sunnydale campus.

"Those guys in the black uniforms. I know them. Almost a year ago a squad of those buggers broke into Wolfram and Hart to steal some files. We didn't learn who sent them but if they are here, it isn't very good for us." Spike said as Illyria did a spark to access some of Fred's memories of how they had beaten these creatures.

"They are mostly machine with human tissue acting as a guidance system." Illyria said as she summoned a battle-axe to her hand.

"So what were they after at Wolfram and Hart?" Finn said as Spike looked at the scene.

"I don't know, but it was probably them getting recon on the offices of Evil Inc." Spike said as the group below started to pack up and leave.

"Well it looks like they are leaving with whatever they came to get here." Gloria said as she moved forward with a pair of binoculars and looked at the scene.

"What ever it is if it gets out it will be bad." Spike said as he turned back to see Illyria gone. "Oh, Bugger and bollacks." He sighed as his head went down.


Illyria used her superhuman speed and stealth to move through the stone pit before anyone noticed that she was gone. Illyria had accessed all information she possessed on the cyborgs that had hit the base of the Wolf, Ram and Hart and knew where to strike them to prevent them from fighting back and prevent the explosives in their chest from going off. The seven beings before her did not stand a chance as she struck them down while adhering to the oath she took before Wesley. Not to kill.
"Bloody Hell, Little Shiva sure moves fast." Spike said as Gloria just lay perched on the rock with her jaw on the floor.

"Okay, she takes out seven guys in less than a ten seconds. I have trouble with just one of these guys." Gloria said as she pulled back a strand of her blond hair.

"Well she was a God to a God, that has to say something about how pissed she can get." Spike said as Gloria looked at him.

"Well, anyone that takes up living with a house full of Slayers, I would pretty much say would have a major set of kahonee's or be nuts." Gloria said as Illyria came back with a limbless cyborg that was still functional.

"I have brought one for you to question. Question him or else I will do the questioning." Illyria said as dropped the being at Finn's feet.

"Um, Okay. Who sent you and what have you taken from the Hellmouth?" Finn said as Illyria pulled out a knife that looked like it was designed for gutting animals or people.

"I cannot say who sent me because I do not know... But what we have taken I can tell you about before my system dies. We have taken all the bodies that were in the graveyards around here for our master, also it wanted us to find what other magical items just as weapons forged by the gods that may have been left by any demons. We have found a few but the most precious of them happens to be the Halabrand of the Chosen Amazons. We have searched and we have not found it."

"Bloody hell you won't, it's in a safe place. What do you think Buffy used to turn this place into a crater?" Spike said as Finn looked at him.

"What are you talking about Spike? You mean Buffy used one of these weapons to turn Sunnydale into this." Finn said as he attempted to wrap his mind around what Buffy had used to take out some Big Bad with.

"Well yeah, it comes in handy when you are taking out the Mother of All Evil to use something that can do the job." Spike said as Illyria proceeded to push the blade into the neck of the limbless Cyborg.

"Tell me of the beings such as yourself how many of the followers of the Black Thorn have you changed and made this way?" Illyria said as she slowly started to dig into the flesh and metal of the being before her.

"Many, it was voluntary or involuntary depended on where they found you. But if you're looking for the Green demon like us, there is something you have to know, we found three. A large green one with no power source, a brown one with a yellow jaw and a woman with tubes coming out of her. The rest of us looked around for talismans and magical items to put into us... We have more teams looking for..." the cyborg went off line but it had given them what they needed to know. The new Big bad was magic item hunting and it was mainly avoiding conflict until it got its forces together, but it was made clear to Illyria, Adam was going to rise again in some form and that some of the followers of the Wolf, Ram and Hart had decided to take up and side with this new threat. Illyria was worried that instead of getting the answers she wanted she only got more questions instead. Now it was a race against time to find out what these scavenger demons or creatures had gotten their claws on.


Riley Finn was standing in the chamber called the Vault under Sunnydale. Gloria was right the resident's had taken their time to get some of the more nastier stuff out of range from these Cyber-Demon thingies and had them contained and demystified for safety reasons. But it was what they had found that had gotten Illyria's attention. It was of some journal that some demon groupie called Knox had left in Sunnydale while he was on his way to L.A. Whatever was in it had Illyria crunched up into a corner flipping through the pages as if it was serious about her, and she seemed to be crying.

"Knox wanted to do this to me... he couldn't I was his god.... No.... No. He hadn't chosen a vessel yet... he was going to..." Illyria paused as she through the notebook away from her and proceeded to go on all fours and throw up. It was his first time to see Demon barf but given how pale she looked what ever was listed in that text had shaken her up badly.

"Illyria you okay?" Riley said as he put his hand on Illyria's shoulder as she started to cry.

"Knox, I was nothing to him but some idol. Even then... he wanted to control me as some sort of pet." Illyria said as she rolled onto her side and onto her backside. Spike had moved to pick up the journal and read through some of it.

"Blue, trust me Knox was just your typical groupie who turned stalker." Spike said as Illyria started to hold herself tight with her arms. "The person in these pages isn't you." Spike continued as he sat down by her. "Humans and other creatures like ourselves are not supposed to be worshipped. Bad things tend to happen." Spike said as Illyria gained some perspective.

"So some of what is here is the Power's stating that I should give up my position?" Illyria said as Spike just hugged her along the side.

"Blue, I think there are powers out there stating that you are like the rest of us. You have seen the hell the creatures that have destroyed countless of world are planning to do to this one. The thing is you have seen what has come out of the rubble of what you thought was the muck but they are like you now, given a few millennia or so, and seeing that is about to happen again. You want to make sure that there are people left that are able to have a choice about their future. You want to make sure that there is a people left after this mess. Hey you were in love with Wesley. No one would have killed so many demons to avenge Wesley. Blue, you're as human as it gets." Illyria just looked at Spike like a deer that just wound up in the headlights of an oncoming semi-truck.

"Spike you and the one called Riley Finn examine these artifact, I need to clear my mind. These recent events about my awakening have disturbed me. I need some time alone." Illyria said as she got up and walked out of the camber as she started to cry.

"Man talk about learning more about what you didn't want to learn about yourself and less about the people that you are after." Finn said as he turned towards Clem and Gloria as they guided them through some of the items. Finn was soon to find out that some of this stuff was industrially bad. But what scared Riley was the idea of who would want a human/demon hybridized cyborg killing machine and another with all the information you would need to make an army of these things.


Illyria walked into the pit to look around, there were many thoughts on her mind it took until she traveled all the way into the bottom that she felt like she had traveled long enough that she needed to head on up. That was until she turned and tripped on a rock and fell down. Illyria caught herself with her hands but she proceeded to land face down. That was when Illyria saw the stone tablet that we in her face. It read with the following, "Illyria God King of the Prymodrium's army was destroyed by the..." the rest of the Tablet was crushed to powder by her hand.

"No, not again not when I am so close to learning what has happened." But as Illyria took her hand up she saw that the fragments were still on her glove. Fearing that the rest of the tablet would be crushed she just stayed still but the rest of the table read with the following: "the people of the Prymordium will return to their home realm from the deeper well only when the events of the..." the word was chipped away from whatever impact had caused it to land. But as Illyria continued to read what was left of it. The word she most feared was found on the tablet. "Their Essence will be Enslaved by the one who seeks to cause imbalance to the forces of Good and Evil by tearing at the domains of the Wolf, Ram and Hart by making its own source of evil. Only the Member of the Primordial that has arisen before this can free her people. The One of the Shanshu will aid her in this quest. In the process, the name of the Old One will take on new meaning. That of Protector." Illyria knew from that moment the reason why she had to come here.

"I am to be a champion?" Illyria thought as she moved herself so that she wouldn't destroy the rest of this stone. Quickly Illyria commanded her vestments to change so that there was a pouch hanging off of her arm and she manipulated it so that the tablet became incased along with part of her glove that had crushed part of the tablet as she withdrew her blue marked hand away. Slowly getting up she made her way up the hill clutching the tablet in her arms as if was more precious than anything she had even known of. Behind her a red humanoid female creature came out of the shadows watching her, its two long three-foot long antenna lapped behind its faceless head as it turned to watch her.

"Illyria..." It said watching the figure go up the hill as it crouched down and slowly blended back into the darkness.


TBC

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