Knights of the Intrepid
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The United States; Nevada; Secret Military Instillation, codenamed 'Area 51'; September 30th, 2016:
"General, we're getting a message from overseas…it's Harris!"
Sinclair moved quickly, with Finn only a step behind him, and the two Officers looked down into computer screen with every fiber of their being.
"…What the Hell kind of shit is this," Sinclair demanded, "First demon…First Slayer…some kind of magic scepter…Finn, I thought this son of a bitch was on the level, seems to me like he's a nutjob! Talking about magic and shit, what the Hell kind of idiot is this!?"
"Sir," Riley interrupted him, "With all due respect, everything that he's said so far, at least up to the bit where the demon's controlling them, is true, including the magic."
"…What," Sinclair asked, astounded.
"Ri," the Colonel turned to his good friend, Graham, as he came up to them and said, "…We're getting a message…it's from the USS Kentucky. Go up to your office."
"…Graham, share some home truths with the General," Finn said as he ran off.
"…Sir," Graham said after the General turned his attention to him, "I think you'd better sit down."
The Kingdom of Spain; A Coruña, A Coruña Province; Dock Instillation; September 30th, 2016:
"You send it, Andrew," Xander asked as their small friend came up the dock towards their plane.
"Yeah," he answered with a sigh, dropping his gear down on the deck, "I didn't get a reply, but, I left that message you wanted me to about us heading out to Roswell after we rescue Dawn."
"Good," Xander said as he grabbed a crowbar and ripped open one of the crates Andrew had been struggling with.
"My word," Giles muttered as he saw what was inside, "Xander…"
"Relax, G-Man," Xander said as he pulled out an H&K G36 and loaded it up, "Great thing about Spain…ever since France and Italy started going at it, it's been playing the arms race with the two, generating a lot more weaponry than it really knows what to do with…and a lot of the older models, along with a lot of the new models, ended up missing, one or three cases a day."
"How'd you know where to send me," Andrew asked, it was difficult carrying two cases, one with four G36s and one with a bunch of ammo, some incendiary and some regular.
"Met a guy here on a trip from Africa a few years back," Xander said as he handed one rifle off to Dana, who expertly began stripping it down, listening to the voices that were instructing her in field maintenance, "Saved his ass from a few demons, he offered me free stuff.
"While we have a moment…we need to think about what our rules of engagement should be."
"Isn't it obvious," Dana muttered angrily, "Kill them all."
"…If there's a chance that we can save them, we have to take that chance," Xander told her, "I understand how you feel about this, I really do, but, think of it this way…if we were to free them, all of them, at the same time, the war would end immediately, well, almost immediately. Besides, no matter how much anger and hatred you have for them, what's happened to them is not of their own doing."
"You may be right," Dana said with a grim scowl, "But, part of it is. They could have fought their urges for the kill, could've fought their superiority complexes, but none of them did! They let themselves be taken by the Destroyer, and for that, I can never forgive them."
"…It's hard, resisting something that's inside you," Xander said to her, "I know…I was possessed once, too…and, I did a lot of things that…I'm not proud of. But, I was freed, and we need to try and free them, too."
"…You're right," she admitted after some effort, "It's just…I hate them all for what they've become. They let themselves fall."
"Is that just your hate, or they Slayers' hate," he asked her.
"Both," she told him vehemently, "We all hate them…but, we admit that they need to be saved."
Suddenly, she tensed up, and everyone knew that the Slayers were telling her something.
"They're coming," she said, and there was no problem guessing who 'they' were.
"How soon," he asked, getting out another G36 and loading it up.
"Minutes," she said, and she finished putting her rifle together and loaded it up, took the safety off, and grabbed the second crate and opened it up, taking a few clips of ammo from there.
Xander tossed his weapon to Andrew, along with some ammo, which the man nearly dropped, but, managed to catch. He handed off another weapon, with ammo, to Giles, who loaded it up and flipped off the safety as he got ready. Xander reached inside and got the last one, his favorite, the G36 with a drum magazine, which, unlike all the others that only held thirty, held one hundred rounds.
"Why do you get the big one," Dana griped with a smile.
"When you get officially cleared for that class of weapon, then, we'll talk," he grinned cheekily and took the safety off, then, he grabbed some cover on the corner of a building.
Dana had taken a position in the plane, getting the extra ammo inside their vehicle and preparing it for takeoff. Giles and Andrew had taken defensive positions around the plane, knowing that it was necessary to get them out of there.
"…They're here," Dana shouted, pointing straight down the dock, and all three turned to see.
There were no less than eighteen Slayers, all of them dressed in their ritualistic 'come-fuck-me' clothing, the only form of protection being a chest plate from an armor set. The front nine were armed with crossbows, the pump-action ones that could fire six shots every fifteen seconds, while the nine behind them were armed with swords, axes, and two with…
"What the bloody Hell," Giles muttered, "They've got buggering shotguns!"
"They must've been told what we were armed with," Xander knew that it was Slayer's instincts to get medieval weaponry, and that the demon was probably just as old fashioned, but, he was worried that, after seeing what they'd done to the navies and armies of the world, the demon would decide to go into modern weaponry, permanently.
God, he hoped the demon was an idiot, even though it hadn't shown much capacity for idiocy.
"Hold," Xander shouted, then, he turned to the Slayers and shouted, "Stand down and we will not fire on you!"
Instead of answering, one Slayer just fired her crossbow at him, and he barely ducked out of the way.
An echoing roar thundered out and said Slayer fell backward. She had been hit in the chest by one shot from Dana's G36, but, the bullet had merely bounced off the armor, as was evident when that Slayer came to her feet.
"Shit," he muttered, "They're armors' reinforced. Aim for their heads!!"
And, like that, the whole world split open.
The United States; Nevada; Secret Military Instillation, codenamed 'Area 51'; September 30th, 2016:
"Reports of heavy damage have come in from the Memphis, Springfield, and Annapolis," Riley listened to the Warrant Officer on the other end, "All of them have sustained heavy damage to their outer hull, both fore and aft. These all managed to surface and get the damage under control…aside from that, about seven other subs survived the bombings. There was only one vessel otherwise that survived, at least when it comes to things like carriers, frigates, and shit…whoever it was left medical boats and auxiliary craft alone.
"Anyway, it was the USS Intrepid. Brass's ordered it commissioned and outfitted, so, it looks like you and your boys'll be moved to the East Coast pretty soon."
"Sir," he interrupted the Warrant Officer, "With respect, Sir, I don't give a shit about that. I just want to know about my wife."
"…We got a transmission from a merchant vessel about a mile off the coast of Iceland. It was about a beached submarine…the ship sent in a team and…it was the Alexandria."
"…Any survivors?"
"A few," the man on the other end said, "…Son, your wife was amongst them…but, it's not good. According to the medical report, she took in a lot of shrapnel in her legs and back…she'll never walk again, son."
The Kingdom of Spain; A Coruña, A Coruña Province; Dock Instillation; September 30th, 2016:
"Just like those damn Slayers," Xander muttered as he took cover from another shotgun blast, "Never know when to quit."
The majority of the Slayers were dead or dying, with only three left fighting. The two gunners were still left, though one was hit in the arm. The third Slayer was armed with a crossbow, with only three arrows left. She and a gunner were hidden behind a few drums filled with water, while the other one was around the corner of the building, sometimes peaking out to take a shot.
But, their side wasn't without casualties, either. Giles was shot in his right hip with a bolt. Dana and he'd worked together, him providing cover and her grabbing him up, and Giles took cover with Xander, behind the building. After performing some quick aid, Giles started helping out by tossing ammo to whoever needed it. Andrew, too, was wounded by one of the Slayers who'd managed to get through their perimeter, given a knife to the shoulder. He was still fighting, though, and that made Xander feel proud for him.
"Damn Slayers," he said to Dana, "They just don't stay down! Never thought I'd hate to see it that way."
"Xander," he turned to Giles for a moment, "We need to wrap this up before the authorities come."
"They're not," Xander said, "They're too busy trying to maintain order. After the bombings and assassinations, a lot of military groups in the country decided to make a bid for control. Spain's in civil war. I don't know about the UK, but, a lot of the US militias sided with the police and National Guardsmen against the groups that did try, like the Neo-Nazis and the KKK."
"How do you know this," Giles asked him, baffled that the young man could have known this.
"I got a paper when we landed," Xander said with a grin.
"…You prat," the Englishman muttered.
Suddenly, the wall beside him burst open, creating a hole about the size of a bowling ball right beside Giles's head.
"God," he screamed, collapsing to the ground with pieces of wood embedded in his skull.
Xander growled under his breath and turned back to the situation at hand, reminding himself that conversations during a battle wasn't a good idea. He popped out from his hiding spot and opened fire on the two Slayers behind the drums. The one with the crossbow had just stood up to fire on Dana, who was ducked down near the plane, hoping to keep it intact for the journey. That Slayer went down the second he pulled the trigger.
The Slayer next to her rose up to take vengeance on him, but, she fell, too, this time from another bullet from another rifle.
"Thanks," Xander shouted to Andrew, who nodded weakly…he was still getting used to this.
So, the three worked together to take down the last Slayer. He issued a few hand signals to Dana, who apparently had a former military Slayer inside, and she nodded.
"Andrew," he called out, "Stay down."
The man nodded his ascent, and Xander settled in to wait on Dana. She was moving around towards the back end, where there was a door that would lead inside the building he was hiding near. She nodded to him and entered the building silently and, as she did, he opened fire on the Slayer, just enough to draw her out.
She opened fire a few times, one of which blew the wood next to him out, embedding a few shards into his abdomen. He leaned against the wall to keep himself upright and waited.
After a few moments, he got the sense that he needed to fire again, so, instead of actually putting himself in the line of fire, he shot blindly into the general area that he knew the Slayer was in. This prompted her to fire once more, and, as a result, Dana fired on her from the inside.
He listened carefully as the shots died down and, after a minute or so, she shouted, "Dead!"
Xander put his weapon down and went over to Giles, who was bleeding from his head and his right shoulder, though it appeared as though the wound on his thigh had stopped bleeding. He saw that a few shards had embedded themselves inside his head, not deep enough to do any kind of permanent harm, but more than enough to be an annoyance.
"Here," he looked up at Andrew and took the first aid kit from him.
"You need that wound looked at," Xander said as he pour some sanitizer on his hands.
"I'm not the one's unconscious," he countered.
"That's more from shock than anything," Xander said, and he began the task of plucking the shards out from his cranium and, as he did this, Andrew began to clean and sterilize the wounds to keep infection down.
The United Kingdom; London, England; Watchers' Council Headquarters; September 30th, 2016:
Buffy Summers grimaced as the mages finished healing her up, but, that had nothing to do with why she was in pain…well, almost nothing.
The first and foremost thing in her mind was the attack she'd authorized on Xander and the renegade, one that had, according to her Master, ended in a clear victory for their enemies. It was apparent to her, now, that the enemy was more well prepared than even the Master was willing to admit. There were ways to adapt, of course, the most obvious being taking up modern arms themselves…but, it went against the nature of the Slayer, of the vampire, even against the Destroyer's nature…
…but, there was an even simpler way to adjust to what their enemies could do.
"Willow," she called the powerful witch over to her, and the redhead looked at her with the dullness that all their slaves had, "Start looking into a changing spell for us."
"Yes, Mistress Slayer," she replied and left to do exactly that.
"Lynette," she motioned one of her inferior Slayers to her, who looked at her with eagerness at serving the appointed Queen Slayer of the Master, "Find out what's happened in Tokyo. The Master can't feel the Slayers there, and He doesn't know what's happened."
If it had been with free-minded slaves, or people who had been coerced, the thought that their supposed deity might not know something would have inspired doubt, or confusion…the young Slayer, however, merely nodded.
All the Slayers knew that their Master worked through them and the vampires, and, without them, His work couldn't be done.
That made their lives all the more important.
The Kingdom of Spain; A Coruña, A Coruña Province; Dock Instillation; September 30th, 2016:
"Right," Dana said as she prepped the plane for immediate departure, with a healing Giles and Andrew in the back and Xander with his safetied G36 in his arms, ready to go if the Slayers tried for an aerial attack, "Let's get the Hell out of here!"
"We need to make a quick stop on the way," Xander said, "I hate to say this, but, after today, it's obvious that the Slayers are willing to branch out into more modern technology. In order to win this war, we're going to need a lot of people on our side, military and civilian alike."
"What're you suggesting," she asked tensely.
"I want to talk to a friend of mine," Xander told her, "He's a mage, he's got connections all over every bit of this side of the Earth, and quite a few more on the other side. Give him a week, he can have an outfitted company ready for war."
"…All right," Dana grudgingly agreed, trusting in Xander, despite that a large number of the Slayers were against the idea, though the opposition was fueled by the feeling bred with indirectly causing the Earth's greatest disaster, "Where's he at?"
"Greece," Xander said, "He can get us a new plane, a lot more equipment, and a lot of connections."
"…Make it so," Dana muttered as she followed the Slayers' instructions to set the course.