Chapter 3: Lock and load.

"Where did you get that!" Cassie demanded, looking at the hand cannon.

Marco looked up. "Oh, this? I had Xander raid a gun store and FedEx whatever was left behind by the Sunnydale population as they left town. I was hoping to keep it a surprise, but that wasn't an option. The First was chatting with me, and I decided that It wasn't going to wait for me this time, and strike before anyone could react. So I reacted before it could make a move."

"Wait, the First?" Willow asked in shock. "I thought we smooshed it."

"'Parently, not well enough, Red," Spike remarked.

Willow and Kennedy blinked a couple times, finally registering his presence. Willow carefully pressed her hand to Spike's chest, checking to see it didn't go through him. Her eyes lit up at the warm peace flowing through his eyes; she knew what he had become. "Welcome back, Spike."

Spike kissed her cheek. "Good t' be back, Will." He looked at Kennedy and held out his hand. She reluctantly shook it.

"Hey, Willow," Cassie greeted. Willow responded by drawing Cassie into a hug. Cassie drew back first (partially because she didn't want to know what a jealous Kennedy was like) and pulled Melissa forward. "Melissa, this is Willow, the one I told you about. Willow, Melissa."

Melissa looked up at the older redhead with wide hazel eyes. "You're really a witch? Like the Charmed Ones?" she asked in awe.

Willow and Cassie shared an amused glance over her head. "Yes, I'm a witch, but I don't have any sisters, so no 'Power of Three'," Willow admitted. "And I can be a lot crankier than the Halliwells could ever be."

"And a lot prettier too," Marco added. "And I mean than all three of them together…which, on second thought, sounds a little too kinky."

Spike groaned with the thought.

"Still think it's cool," Melissa noted. She glanced at Spike. "What's his problem?"

Marco grinned. "He hasn't laid down for a while."

"Now that that's done with, can we get on to more important issues?" Marco griped, tucking away his weaponry. "Besides, doesn't anyone remember the news update? The First is unkillable, and indestructible. It can create more of its own Bringers, and we obviously haven't killed them all, and frankly, you only stopped it from becoming corporeal—remember, when the number of its super-vamps numbered the amount of people on the planet, It would become solid, not before. You killed the super-vamps, and a lot of Bringers, not the First."

"Very good, Marco, you paid attention," the thing that sounded like Buffy said.

"Oh, and that's the First," Marco muttered. "Pay no attention to the shade behind the curtain, it's annoying but harmless."

The First smiled. "Well, if you don't show up on the rooftop at eleven tonight, I'm going to have your parents killed, and frankly, I don't think you want that."

If Cassie's glare had the ability to be lethal, the First would have suffered the Almighty's wrath ten times over. St. Michael, I know you don't normally allow it, but let me face this…thing down, just once, she silently prayed to God's Marine. No one, but no one threatened her family, not even the greatest evil since Lucifer was cast out of Heaven.

Marco smiled. "One of these days, you're going to learn to keep your mouth shut. But no, your only superpower is the ability to piss people off, you know that, don't you?"

It shrugged. "It works."

"Not really, no. It just helps us kick the crap out of you, because in addition to fighting for our lives, it means we want to beat you around the place."

Marco stepped closer, looming over it. "I'm half sorry Buffy didn't just let you become corporeal, because that would make it so easy for me to lean over and rip your arms off and beat you to death with them."

It leaned forward to him and whispered. "Trust me, I'd enjoy it, especially when you realize that I can't be killed. Ever. Just be on the roof. And bring your friends, I'd like to kill them all too."

He beamed. "I don't bring people who are just going to sit around and watch me beat up on some poor helpless bastard you send after me."

It shook its head. "We'll see."

It vanished, and Marco merely sighed. He turned to Amanda and said, "Come on, I'm going to need your help on a few things." He looked to the others. "Please, talk among yourselves."

Amanda closed the door to Marco's room and whirled to face him. "What, exactly, are we doing? You just—"

He raised his hand. "I know. Trust me on this, I have a plan in mind, I just need to be able to do something."

"What?"

"I've fought Buffy, and I won; I fought Bringers, and I win; I need to see if I can fight someone who thinks like me, and who's as strong as Buffy."

Amanda launched herself at him with a right cross, and Marco leapt back. Amanda, anticipating a blow to her ribs, swept her right forearm down in a block, blocking a fist that would never come—Marco had instead waited for that block to launch his attack, a two-fisted thrust. Amanda caught one hand before it connected, but the second one hit her kidney, and he threw himself into her, knocking her off balance for a second before he threw both arms up in the air, breaking her hold on him, and striking her at the same time on the chin. She blinked as the blow jarred her, but found that it didn't hurt as much as she expected it to.

Marco leapt back, making sure to keep himself out of a kick—he wasn't sure if she knew that she could now take his head off with one contact. He leapt onto his bed and jumped off of it onto the ceiling fan, launching a kick for her head, and she promptly dropped to the floor, dodging the follow-up kick as well, but he did drop from the ceiling fan directly on top of her, tapping the blunt end of his stake against where her heart should be.

He smiled. "It's a start."

Marco merely waited on top of his apartment building, eyes closed, listening for the approaching threat. With his luck, it would not come in a direct approach anyway—he'd probably hear it first.

"Hey, you're dinner, aren't you?"

He opened his eyes, confused. "There was something about a major threat sent after me, you can't be it."

The short, skinny vampire grinned. "Why not?"

"Well, you see, I came all prepared." He reached to the small of his back and pulled out a large gun. "This is a .50 caliber Desert Eagle, powerful enough to take down a bear. And I get you?"

The vampire stepped forward. "Bullets don't work on me, pal."

"Really? Then this is worthless, isn't it?" He answered, holding the gun in between them, muzzle pointed up. "It's not like I can do something as simple as—" He dropped the muzzle down, at the vampire, and fired, blowing his head literally off his shoulders, turning it him instant ash. "—blow your head off." He sighed. "Well, that was a waste of my time."

"I don't think so, young man," said a deep voice laced with a Russian accent.

Marco looked to the rooftop on his right, spotting the big vampire he had seen months before in Sunnyhell, who had been identified as Mikhail the Bear's brother. "Nice move. What was with the other vamp?"

He waved it away. "A pawn. I wanted to see what you can do. You didn't give me much of a show."

"Sorry about that, I'm not very obliging. Hey, you at least deprived me of the surprise."

"Not really. I saw the bulge in your clothing. I can probably identify everything you have on."

Cattalano smiled. "Okay. So that means I shouldn't bother shooting you, considering you can probably dodge all of them."

He shook his head. "I don't need to—I just need to avoid a head shot."

"Point taken."

"I hear you're a chess player."

"Last time I checked. You?"

"I beat one of the IBM supercomputers in a straight match—I didn't even need to have my pieces move all over the place to confuse it. I think 20 moves ahead, most days."

Marco frowned. "Darn, that's how many I think ahead. My girlfriend thinks 21 moves, but I'm possibly more vicious, which is why I occasionally win."

Cattalano put his gun behind his back, as if to holster it, but instead thrust his arm around his back, poking the barrel out the other side of his body, and fired.

However, the Russian vampire was already in motion, leaping out of the way, having already anticipated the move. Marco whipped the gun to the fore, aiming for the vampire's chest, and fired. The Russian kept moving, until he was directly in front of the human. He could see the gun was aimed at his chest—if fact, it was aimed at the wrong side of his chest. He fired off three shots in quick succession, and the vampire didn't even blink, knowing that nothing could happen.

What he didn't expect was the squirt gun to appear in Marco's hand, firing into the open wounds only just produced in the vampire's chest, causing the water to literally get into his body. The vampire flinched in surprise, causing Marco to tweak the weapon upward and fire for his skull. He still moved out of the way of the bullet, but the ear had vaporized, and part of the neck bone was crushed. In fact, the vampire could feel parts of his body go numb from the nerve damage caused by Marco redirecting his squirt gun directly into the new wound, making sure that the damage was as permanent as possible.

The vampire growled and leapt for the edge of the roof. Marco raised the gun and fired his last shot after the vampire.

"Damn it."

He slowly moved to put the gun away when the vampire came back—he had actually grabbed onto the ledge and threw himself up, feet first, slamming into Marco's body. Cattalano collapsed, the squirt gun and the Desert Eagle sliding out of his hands. Marco rolled to his feet, two stakes in hand.

He smiled. "That was a nice one."

The Vampire nodded. "Thank you. But shouldn't you have been shattered by that attack?"

"Yes, but I said I wouldn't bring my friends, not ask them for some magical assistance. I figured a temporary shield would help, just to see what I was dealing with. Your boss seemed too sure of itself, so some help was not out of line. Don't worry, the shield faded once you hit it. We can now play for keeps."

The vampire grinned with ugly teeth. "Good."

Marco then did something he never thought he would do in his entire life of dealing with vampires.

Attacked.

The Russian was a little surprised, but knew what Marco would try to do—lunge for his legs, cut them out from under him, stab him with an ignitable stake, and then roll away before he could kill him.

With a thought process as fast as a computer, the vampire thought about all of the alternatives.

Kick for the human's face as he lunges.

Grab him in midair and swing him around like a shot-put—at which point he stabs the stakes into my arms.

Jump over him—and have him throw one into my back.

Dodge to the left or right—and deal with the throw again.

Leap back, and then step forward, using his head like a football—hoping he doesn't roll to a crouch and stab for my legs and stomach.

Drop to one knee and punch him as he lands—I don't see how he can even anticipate that.

The Russian dropped to one knee just as it looked like Marco was about to lunge—

Marco's own thought process was—He knows that humans can dodge a throwing knife if expecting it. We both know a vampire can do the same, therefore, we both know it won't do me any good to throw, so the assuming is that I won't, so he did.

Both stakes landed squarely in the vampire's shoulders, setting him ablaze. The vampire pushed off one foot and whirled to put out the flames, and as he did so, Marco pulled out another handgun—a small .22, and fired.

The vampire had every intention of ignoring the blasts until he felt the bullets land, and knew what Cattalano had done—filled hollow-point bullets with holy water, and used candle wax to seal them. The bullets opened up and fragmented, filling his chest with shrapnel and holy water.

Marco fired six times without stopping, and fired six more before ejecting the cartridge and reloading with wooden bullets.

The vampire stopped and flared, never thinking it would have gotten to the point where he'd need to use a backup, his secret card for hundreds of years. But apparently technology had at last caught up to him. Cattalano aimed for right between the vampire's eyes, and before he fired, something went wrong—the vampire's eyes turned from yellow to black.

He reached for his chest, and kept his hand over it, and slowly, the bullet fragments leapt from his chest into the palm of his hand, and they gathered like dust on a mantle piece, and he hurled them at Marco, making the human drop to the ground and roll out of the way. The vampire grabbed both stakes and threw them at the human as well, keeping Marco off balance and keeping him from a clear shot.

"I have been around for hundreds of years, I was a Cossack. Do you truly think that I, unlike my brother, would be slow enough to not learn magic?"

Willow was monitoring the battle, ready to insert herself to Marco's aid. She put the shield up around him, and against his orders, concentrated on it lest he needed her.

Cassie watched Willow's face anxiously, looking for even the slightest change in expression. She never liked the idea of Marco facing off against whatever the First had in store for him—especially since she had dug up Mikhail's brother—alone, despite the threat to their parents. She struggled to stay perfectly still, keeping her breathing even and not pacing the length and breadth of the room.

Unfortunately, she couldn't keep from mentally hopping from one foot to the other, or her soul twisting into knots with worst-case scenarios.

Willow's eyes snapped opened and fixed on Cassie. Monitoring the situation with Marco had made her sensitive to the thoughts of everyone in the apartment, especially the blood relative.

"Cassie, if you don't stop it, I'm going to ask Kennedy to move you out of the apartment, the quick way."

"Huh?"

Kennedy smiled. "That means I'd throw you out the door."

Cassie started—the attitude was a little rough for the redhead.

Willow took a calming breath and explained, "I have to be mentally open to track Marco. You worrying distracts me."

Cassie bit her lip. "Sorry."

Amanda, who'd been talking to Melissa about having the ability to level quarterbacks with a single blow, came over and drew Cassie away from the witch. "Cassie, why don't you come over here and calm Mel down a little, she's being really jittery."

Mel smiled. Her? Nervous? Give me a break! Oh well, I have to take care of the grownups now.

Cassie knew Amanda was using the kid as a distraction, and she was grateful. In fact, Melissa's broad smile and the twinkle in her eyes were additional warning signs that the excuse was as flimsy as Playboy negligee.

A knock came at the door, and Cassie flew to meet it, hoping that it was Marco.

Amanda got to the door first, blocking Cassie's path. "And if it's a Bringer who wants to stab through the door and impale you?"

"Sorry, I didn't think of that…why did you?"

She smiled. "I think like Marco does." She looked through the peephole, and—hoping it wasn't the First in some sort of guise, she opened it wide, ready to strike.

It was a brunette of medium build, with hair going down to her shoulder blades, dressed in what she knew as light black camouflage body armor. She had dark eyes—so dark she couldn't tell if they were blue or brown.

"This is the Cattalano place?"

"Yes, and you are?"

"Unimportant right now. Where are Marco and Cassie Catalano?"

"Why are you asking?"

She sighed. "I have little patience for this right now, we're tracking down an international threat, and they might be the bait we need to get things in motion."

"And who are you, Homeland Security?"

"No, I'm a lot more dangerous."

Willow stood from the couch and peeked around Amanda's flowing red hair. "What are you doing here?"

Marco let the vampire talk while he tried to think through his next move, not to mention what other abilities he might have. He had exchanged emails with Buffy, and had gotten details of her exchange with the Preacher, realizing that his eyes had also turned black.

Which means this one is also charged by the First? But wait a sec, wasn't the "Son of a Preacher man's" eyes turning back right before he died? I couldn't have hurt him that bad, could I? Or is it the type of "Hello, my name is Willow, and I'm about to end the world," type of black eyes? In which case, HELP!

"You know, I'm not just killing you because of my brother—I know your sister did that, but you also killed my mentors, the invincible one, and Nuala."

Marco blinked. "You mean Bob was your mentor as well?"

The vampire nodded, letting himself heal. "My brother was into the little picture— breed, nest, move on, hoping to rid the world of humans over hundreds of years. But they were into a bigger picture, especially when Bob gave Saddam the real weapons of war."

He smiled. "You mean weapons of mass destruction?"

"No, I mean weapons that the United States will never be able to detect. I mean weapons that will be dispersed through the United Nations to every country no one wants them to get to—he was in the middle of the deal until you killed him."

"Great, now you're telling me I saved the free world, how nice."

"Free world? No, it's not free, just expensive. You've heard of the food for oil program? It's a sham; Bob was using Saddam to buy off UN members for him; Saddam got the money, and Bob got influence by giving oil all over the place."

Marco blinked. Saddam Hussein's regime had only fallen two months before, and the Iraqi "president" had disappeared into the abyss. The best anyone could tell, the five months spent bickering at the UN gave Hussein enough time to smuggle his WMDs into Syria. "So what was Bob going to do then?"

"Keep the UN from doing anything by making the French and the Russians the logjam, as well as Kofi Anon, through his son. It worked even after his death, it seems."

"I guess you have no ambitions to recreate his work?"

"Buffy" appeared beside him. "No, but I do."

Cattalano wanted to turn to It, the First, but didn't want to take his eyes off the big scary vampire. "You and what army?"

"Mikhail's," the Russian answered.

The human smiled. Mikhail the Bear had spent centuries nesting all over the world. They were all trained in the style of Nuala, the Slayer Vampire, who had taught Mikhail and his brother.

Marco nodded. "Let me guess, you're going to send hit teams out after the new Slayers, and then go after Buffy's SWAT team of the fully-trained Slayers, then go after the rest of the world? I can see it now, the First as the General, you as the Captain, the Bringers as the Lieutenants, and the vampires as the foot soldiers."

"It gets better," the First answered. "We've already sent teams into North Korea, China, Cuba and Iran. Negotiations are already under way to turn the political 'undesirables' into vampires to add to our army."

Marco did some numbers crunching. "There are about a million starving people in North Korea, last time I checked, starved by the government. That's a lot of undesirables."

"Exactly. Soon, nothing will stop us."

Lightning struck from a clear evening, hitting the vampire with thousands of watts of energy, enough to light up the Empire State Building for a minute. The vampire, stunned, teetered on the edge of the roof, and fell over, landing in an alleyway with a resounding thud.

Marco and the First looked at each other, and then to the rooftop next door. There stood a man who was easily six-feet tall, with brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, broad forehead, a build like a medium-sized wrestler, and he cradled an odd looking weapon in his arms.

"Not really," he stated. "We've been tracking you people down for years. About time we did, too. We had a lead on you twice, and then they mysteriously died, now we know where they died," he added, looked at Marco. "Good work, but damned inconvenient."

Marco straightened. "I guess you know what this is," he waved to the First.

"Yes, but I didn't know Buffy had died."

Marco paused for a minute before saying, "Well, Captain, maybe you should've asked her." He looked at the First. "See what you get for dabbling in international politics? You've already pissed off the US army."

The First beamed. "That's why I brought my own army. I was hoping to get someone over here, but I didn't think I'd hit the jackpot. This isn't over yet."

"I didn't think so, but now my parents are out of play, aren't they?"

It frowned. "Our Russian friend likes playing to rules. I'm going to have to break him of that habit, so yes, they are. I can't afford to piss him off by sending my own Bringers after you instead of his vampires, so yes, they're safe. Damn it."

The First transformed itself into its true form—a large, horned creature, and disappeared over the side, following the vampire

Marco headed for the stairs, picking up his fallen weapons. "Come on, It's going to be pissed, and probably already recharging vampire boy as we speak." He grabbed and held the door for the soldier. "By the way, Captain Finn, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've heard a lot via Buffy and company."

He smiled. "Thanks, and call me Riley."

"Done, and your wife?"

"In your apartment right now."