Author's Note: There are forces out there more powerful than me...their called copywrite laws.

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Chapter 31

"The slayers are coming, sir," a vampire reported.

"Of course they are." Zeak smiled slightly and took a puff of the fine cigar that was in his hand. He had always appreciated a good smoke, even when he'd been alive.

"But brother," Titus whined as the flunky left, "If the slayers come…"

"All we'll lose is some…okay, a lot of minor players," Zeak stabbed his cigar at Titus where he sat across from Zeak at the table. "Who cares about some small fish. You have to be aware of the big picture here, Titus, remember?"

"R-Right," the thin vampire gnawed at his fingernails, making them bleed and then sucking on them. "The b-b-big p-picture. I got it, Zeak."

Zeak eyed his brother out of the corner of his eye. They couldn't afford for anything to go wrong here. One wrong move and Hell itself might seriously break loose. Then he nodded. For all his flaws, and there were many, Titus would do as he was told.

………..

Xander stood in the center of the Ops room at the Cleveland campus. There were two rooms in each campus, one main one and another in case of emergencies. Claiming to have the most knowledge about these things by virtue of having watched just about every single quote "super cool futuristic spy, military, and sci-fi flick out there", Andrew had taken over the designing of them.

Saying he'd been influenced by both by Babylon 5 and James Bond, Andrew had done a surprisingly thorough job by blending together a mix of technology and magick with which to keep track of the slayers in the field. Only one watcher was needed to run the room, though it could hold more depending on the size and the amount of operations being executed at any given moment. They also had the ability to link in with the other operations rooms at the separate campuses.

For this, every campus was involved. The Cleveland campus was running the program down in Mexico, the Hong Kong campus was attending to things in India, and the British campus was helping out the smaller, African based school with its operation. The school in Rio was keeping track of the rest of the world. Xander nodded to Dawn, letting her know he was prepared for her to activate the room.

As he, Dawn, and Giles stood in the middle of the room the illusion spell shimmered into place around them. The entire room seemed to disappear. In front of them were 3 different images, each the real time view of the head slayer at each location. Every slayer carried a charm so that the view could switch to them if required. Around the back of room were the images of the representatives of each school, linked real time and awaiting their orders.

"I hate the bouncing," Dawn complained, "I always feel like I'm gonna hurl. I had the same problem with The Blair Witch Project."

"Suck it up, Dawnie," Faith's voice echoed in the room as she stood up. The observers could see a few strands of her dark hair whip about in front of her, blown by the violent wind of the open plane door. "If you can't take a little bouncing, close your eyes for the next part of the show!" With that the slayer flung herself out of the plane and into the pitch black night with a graceful leap.

"Beginning Operation Baby Get Back," Andrew announced, he was representing England.

"How did we end up with that name?" Xander asked.

"We took a vote," Andrew huffed, "The younger girls won. They liked it because it reminded them of the Sir Mix-A-Lot song, Baby Got Back."

"Dear Lord," Giles sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

Xander just smirked and turned back to the operation, he loved the odd mix of professionalism and weird humor that permeated the new Council. As he watched the team leaders plummet from the sky with their squads he prayed to whoever was out there, PTB's or not, that they wouldn't loose anyone tonight. He wasn't quite sure why he still prayed like this. He had been shown so many times that the PTB didn't care about individuals, only Their "greater good". He supposed it was the innate Scoobie stubbornness in him. He refused to give up hope.

"We're down," Faith grunted as she and the rest of her squad chucked their parachutes and dropped the last hundred feet to the ground. "Tell the magick people to do their thing."

"We have arrived," Chao-Ahn stated a second afterward from her location in India.

"Good to go," reported Vi, the leader of the African team.

"Get the shields up," Xander ordered.

The orders went down the line and at three different locations around the world, in perfect sync, three spots seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. To the passing satellites they seemed the same, but underneath the shield was an entirely different story. No communication, electronic or magickal, save for the Councils was allowed in or out. For all intents and purposes they had become dead zones.

"I've got no traffic from the 'real world,'" Dawn commented, keeping her eyes on the bouncing images.

"Good," Xander sighed. Even thought they'd timed it so the operations could all be committed under cover of darkness it had still been kind of tricky with all the time zones. They liked to do things late at night to avoid people but in Mexico and India they'd had to go early evening and early morning. Luckily, the bad guys had been nice enough to make their secret headquarters out in the middle of nowhere. It made keeping this under wraps a lot easier.

"Move in, people," he told the impatient slayers that were waiting on the inside rim of the newly set up shield after the main units reported the all clear. The units that had dropped from the sky had been in charge of taking out any sentries and security systems, electronic or otherwise. It was the job of the rest of the slayers to sweep in from all sides to ensure containment.

Dawn had had trouble at first, watching slayers work this way through the images. It was one thing to see one jump into a fight with a vamp or a demon while on patrol. Then the view was jumping around so much it was hard to keep track of. But watching them, through their own eyes, creep up on their intended victims, always gave her the wiggins. Vampire or not, they always gave her the feel of a big cat sneaking up on its prey. It was a little more insight into slayer psychology than she wanted.

"Here come the kiddies," Faith informed them as she leaned off the metal tower she was on to look out over the scrub filled plain, shaking the dust of a dead vamp off her jacket. The Mexican facility was obviously an old industrial plant of some kind. Huge metal towers shot up out of the main concrete building, a maze of pipes and ladders covering it all. The slayer's enhanced vision gave the watchers a good view of one of the squads as they came streaming over a hill like a pack of wolves. "Guess it's time to get to work."

…………….

They're waiting for us…

Time is different here…

Their screams are muffled…so far away…

We aren't ready yet…

We like it here…everything is soft…

Perhaps we will wait…just a bit longer…but…

………….

"Tyra," Xander addressed one of his squad leaders in Africa, "send two of your squad over to flank the vamps in the eastern corridor. Margo's bottled up there."

"Right, boss," Tyra agreed and gave the orders.

Xander took a deep breath and went back to studying all the information coming in from the field. The operation was going well so far. They'd encountered pockets of resistance, but that was to be expected. The problem was that the vamps they were encountering were very organized and they were using modern weaponry.

"We got 'em, boss" Tyra reported, "Sheila and Max took 'em out from behind."

"Good." Xander nodded, "Margo, now that you're free, continue on to next set of hallways." Xander's arms folded across his chest as he watched the display before him. This is sitting about as well as Episodes one through three. These vamps are too organized.

And guns?

Since when do the dead and fangy decide that guns are a good thing to use? They should stick to the their sucky, bitey ways. Gonna give me the serious willies if we move into actual live fire permanently.

Luckily, their girls had been trained to deal with military tactics. After their run in with the Initiative the Council had deemed it necessary.

"How are things going on with you guys?" he addressed Giles and Dawn, not turning to look at them.

"We're good," Dawn reported. "No casualties, though I sent two back to the shield because of gunshot wounds."

"Only one for me, thank god," Giles reported.

"I've got some info," Andrew reported from England. "I finally managed to track down the owners of these places. If I'd had Willow's help it would have been faster 'cause she could have used magick but since she's not…"

"Get to it in the next century, Andrew," Dawn interrupted.

Andrew's eyes had dark circles under them and his hands were shaking slightly, a sure sign of a caffeine overload.

"Right," Andrew shook his head, "Basically, I followed the trail back through all these shell companies and came up with one name, Magnolia Security, Ltd. They're…"

"They're mercenaries," Dawn stated grimly, her eyes flat.

"Technically they run security operations for civilian organizations in dangerous areas," Andrew reported. "They do security work for big corporations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."

"Like us?" Xander asked confused.

"Not exactly," Dawn cleared up the situation, "Though it's true one of our cover businesses, the Time Group, does do that sort of thing. I've run into these guys before though. Their little more than thugs in business suits. I knew they were into some bad things, but I certainly didn't know they were into the supernatural," Dawn cursed fluently in several languages.

"It doesn't matter," Giles reassured her, "There's nothing we can do now but complete the operation and deal with them later. Andrew, I want you to keep digging. If you come up with anything that can help us right now, tell us. If not, just file it away and we'll discuss it at a later date."

"Right, Giles," Andrew wearily agreed, going back back to his assigned task.

The three Scoobies turned their attention back to the current operation. The slayers were working their way methodically through the buildings from the outside. The Mexican facility's maze of industrial corridors was proving particularly tedious. The African and Indian facilities were nothing to laugh at. The African building must have been a storage area of some kind because it was a huge, concrete, underground labyrinth of hallways and empty rooms. The facility in India was made up of a large amount of smaller buildings that were networked together by small hallways. No one had any clue what it had been.

"I don't like this," Dawn muttered, "There's not enough resistance."

"What do you mean?" Xander asked, "Their holding their own."

"I know, but look at the situation," Dawn pointed out, "We're whittling away at them steadily, their being forced to retreat. All we've run into are these stupid vamps. No big demons, no magick guys, no trap spells, nothing."

"Maybe they were only expecting us to send in a small group," Giles suggested, "That's all we've ever had to send in before, a squad or two. We've never committed forces in this manner."

"Maybe," Dawn muttered, still unsettled.

"I think we've found the rooms the girls are in, Dawnie," Faith's distinctive voice came across thousands of miles to the echo through the room. Dawn had taken over charge of the Cleveland school with Willow down and Rona and Faith in Mexico. "There's a big group of bad guys making some kind of stand in front of a fucking big door."

"Can you break through without casualties?" Dawn asked.

"My girl's taking care of it," Faith told them smugly while peeking around a corner. The watchers got a view of Lucky out in a large corridor, a whirling chain in each hand.

I never want to piss her off, Dawn reiterated to herself once again. The somewhat plain looking slayer had a cold, flat expression on her face as she'd ripped through the vampire defense.

"I think we've found ours as well," Chao-An reported, "It has to be it, there's not a room left we haven't swept."

"Check it," Xander ordered, a bad feeling beginning to develop in his stomach.

"Damn it!" Vi's voice was sharp as it came across the line, "Guys, there's not a damn thing here but rats and vamps and right now the rats are more threatening. We've searched the whole place. There're no girls here!"

"There's nothing here, Xander!" Chao-An reported, looking around at a bare room.

"We've busted through," Xander shifted his attention to Faith's operation as she reported in. "The last vamp is dust. We're going in."

"Wait Faith, don't...," was all Xander got out as he watched through Faith's eyes as her squad slammed through a huge metal door.

"What the hell?" Faith had walked forward through the door. She stopped and looked down.

"Oh goddess," Dawn managed as the watchers in the room took in what was on the screen.

Faith and her squad were standing on a large walkway overlooking a huge room. Below her the room was split into four pits, wide and open at the top and funneling down to smaller circles on the bottom. At the top of each pit six baby slayers, their hands and feet melded into steel plates, hung helpless. All twenty-four missing girls were here, the other two locations in India and Africa had been a ruse.

"Faith, look," Lucky's hand came into focus as she pointed down at the girls. "Their hurt…their all bleeding."

It was true, each girl had been slashed twice, a huge bloody x on her back. The blood was seeping down the concrete channels they were lying in. Luckily, they all seemed to be unconscious and not dead. Faith could hear their hearts still beating.

"Don't let the blood reach the floor!" Giles yelled, startling the slayers on the platform into action. Leaping down they all ran as fast as they could to help the girls. But it was too late. Missy Harrison's blood reached the floor before they did.

The squad blew backwards as light shot up from one pit. The one pit started then the other three light up in succession, emanating an eerie, orangish light. Faith rolled to her side and tried to stand, but fell to the floor as the ground began to shake violently beneath her. Frightened now, she stopped and covered her ears as the space filled with a huge crash. To her, it sounded like a great gong being hammered with sledgehammer, making even the bones of the Watchers in Cleveland shake and vibrate. All over the world Slayers fell to the ground, writhing in agony.

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Author's Note:

Sorry it's so late this time. Let's just say it was a combination of the holidays, the downsliding economy, writer's block, a couple other factors, and my own inherint laziness.

Finally getting down to the wire here! Ooohh, I'm so excited. How 'bout you guys? Eh...Eh...No one's anwering. Oh well, I'm happy in my own little world. Thanks to everyone who's kept up with this story from the beginning and even whose who've just joined. You guys ROCK!