A Spark of Genius Chapter 33:The Grey Knight Rides In Hell, a Buffy: The Vampire Slayer + Justice League Crossover fanfic

Spark of Genius

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy verse, Girl Genius verse, DC comics or any of the other smatterings of pop culture and literary ideas that I refer to in my story, I just tread through a few other sandboxes. Oh, and several names are made up, some are real, but the facts have been changed to protect the corrupt and innocent equally.

AN1: Sorry about getting this out so late, but it was actually done Friday. Then my beta went on vacation, and then her computer crashed (so this hasn't been beta'd) and also some jack ass decided to make inappropriate actions and statements towards my wife at work (where's my shotgun?) which needed to be dealt with. Real life is such a hassle some times, but it definitely comes first. I hope you like it, but don't complain about mistakes as it hasn't been beta'd, as soon as the beta reviews it I'll put up the edited version. Cheers!

AN2. Are you ready for War? What else did you expect to happen when Xander finds out that women are in danger, and from demons at that? Without further adieu, let's get this party started!

'Thought'

"Speech"

/foreign language/

Chapter 33: The Grey Knight Rides In Hell.

"I am the hammer, I am the right hand of the Emperor, the instrument of His will, the gauntlet about His fist, the tip of His spear, the edge of His sword!"

~The Grey Knight, Warhammer 40k

Xander returned to his physical body with a gasp, his back locked stiff and eyes opened wide as he drew in a huge breath in almost an approximation of what happens when one breaches the surface of an ice covered lake. In heaving breathes, Xander clutched his chest at his racing heart as everything Rama Kushna had told him beat at his head in an instant; for mortal psyches cannot stand in the presence and realm of the gods and not leave unaffected.

The bronze lions that had been lazily resting about the clearing recognized the agitation in their creator and their tails whipped back and forth in sympathetic agitation as they came to their feet as one and started to look around for any possible threats, ignoring the silently standing figure of Kai-Ro who had appeared sometime before Xander exited the mystical realm of the goddess.

Kai-Ro stood stoically silent, waiting for Xander's heart to calm and mind to reach a lower level of stress before letting Xander know that the monk was standing nearby.

"One cannot be in the presence of the goddess and not leave unchanged." Kai-Ro said simply, a hint of understanding and sympathy in his voice for Xander's particular situation.

Xander just looked up at Kai-Ro and nodded silently, Xander put his focus and concentrating on bringing his heart rate back into control along with the turmoil of his mind. Xander had learned much, and he was sure that each word Rama Kushna had said to him would have great meaning for his future. However, before he could figure out what to do with the advice, he realized he would have to spend a lot of time in introspection and contemplation. Only after that could Xander hope to figure out what the hell to do with controlling his Spark.

'The Spark! Dear God that's a shocker, not to mention the virus and the potential of what is to come...' Xander thought frantically as he took a big shuddering breath and then forced himself to breathe slow deep breaths, closed his eyes for a moment, and calmed himself.

'Now's not the time dear boy. Rama Kushna's last statement hinted at our need to hurry from this place and return to the real world as someone, or ones, require our assistance.' The voice of Reason stated in the back of Xander's mind, always come and collected when the world threw another ratchet into the work's of Xander's life.

Xander sighed and shook himself, his voice of reason was right, he had to leave Nanda Parbat, and soon.

Looking up at Kai-Ro, Xander's eyebrows furrowed and he answered sincerely, "I appreciate the time that you monks have given me here, but it is time that I leave."

Kai-Ro gave a little bow of his head, "So we have been told. Your pack is by the front gate and the brothers are there to wish you goodbye." The monk said with a bit of a fond smile.

Xander nodded and stood up from his lotus position, floated across the sandy expanse without marring its manicured setting, and then touched down barefoot on the dirt path. As Xander's foot hit the ground, the black loose shirt and pants that he had worn for the last two and a half months rippled and formed into the black armor that he had arrived in; stopping at the neckline and leaving Xander's face exposed.

Xander nodded silently and gestured for the pride of seven lions to follow them.

Kai-Ro led Xander silently through the dirt tracks surrounded by foliage until they reached one of the stone cobbled paths. Kai-Ro guided Xander through the silent city to the front gates; the only sound of their travel the light almost nonexistent clicks of the lion-clank's mostly retracted claws scratching on the stone road.

Xander and Kai-Ro turned a corner, and the monks were all standing lining both sides of the path leading to the gates. Xander smiled at the silent visage of the monks and nodded to them as he passed them by on the way to the gate.

Stopping before the gate, one of its double doors open and ready for Xander to exit, Xander turned and bowed to the gathered monks before addressing them with a quirky smile.

"Thanks for the help you gave me, and for putting up with all of my noise and distractions." Xander quipped with a little shrug of his shoulders, as if insinuating that he couldn't help it.

The gathered monks all silently and straight faced bowed their heads slightly in reply.

Xander turned his smile to Kai-Ro, and then to the six female lion-clanks. "Protect the temple of the goddess and the city of Nanda Parbat from invasion or attack. Listen to Kai-Ro, the master of the temple, and especially the Goddess if they give you requests." Xander commanded the clanks while squatting down and patting them on the head as they each came and bumped up against him. Xander smirked and laughed as the last one head-butted him in the chest and tried to knock Xander backwards.

"Stop that you… silly kitties. Anyway, you remember what to do if Ra's al Ghul or his assassins try to get into the city?" Xander asked, his smirk taking on a bit of a dark macabre light.

"SNICKT!" As one, all six female looking lion-clanks sat back on their haunches and raised a formidable right front paw that suddenly was sporting eight inch long razor sharp claws which they negligently licked as if they were cats merely cleaning themselves peacefully without a care in the world.

"Heh, good kitties." Xander chuckled and smiled before turning his smile towards Kai-Ro.

Xander stood up and faced the ancient alien looking being who would one day join the ranks of the Green Lanterns.

"Thanks again for all your help Kai-Ro, even though I'm sure there were times that we both wanted to kill the other." Xander quipped humorously with his goofy smirk and a shrug.

"Think nothing of it, it was my pleasure. Know that you always have a place of rest and contemplation with us if you want, but heed the goddess's warning regarding walking the balance." Kai-Ro answered simply.

Xander's smile didn't drop so much as turn honest and sincere in his understanding, and he nodded. Reaching down, Xander snagged his backpack from where it sat next to the open door, and swung it up onto his shoulders.

Xander waved once and said to all, "So long, and thanks for all the fish and rice." Xander smirked and stepped with the male lion-clank following him out into the wind that howled outside the gates. Xander proceeded across the rope bridge that spanned the chasm with his clank following along loyally behind.

Behind Xander the doors shut to the hidden city shut, and the moment the doors shut Kai-Ro turned to address his brothers.

A smile slowly crept across Kai-Ro's face, a smile that was mirrored on the faces of every monk there. With a shout of joy Kai-Ro yelled out, "He's gone! The chaotic one is finally gone, and we can have peace again!"

And in the frozen city of Nanda Parbat, there was much rejoicing.

As Xander walked across the bridge out of the city, he swore he heard cheering, but shook his head as it was probably just his imagination or the wind. Mentally calling up his helmet, the black covering of Xander's nano-clank armor crept up his neck in an instant and covered over his face as he stepped off the bridge and onto the snowy ledge on the far side.

Turning towards the clank Krosp, Xander gestured for the lion to come closer. "I'll have to carry you for the first bit as we fly. As soon as we get out of the time field we will be transporting back to the castle."

Krosp made a huffing sound of acknowledgement and sauntered over to Xander, where Xander bent down and picked up the beast easily, even though Krosp was quiet heavy.

As Xander floated up into the air and quickly through the barrier of the city and the real world, Xander had an odd thought. 'Come to think of it, it's lucky that old rope bridge held under his weight…' Xander shrugged off the thought and called up a portal to take him immediately to the city.

Stepping through the portal as soon as the clouds had formed around him, Xander stepped through the black portal and into a bustling command center swarming with minions and satellite photos of the world and the activities going on around it.

Xander set down Krosp and took a moment to look around. Krosp gave his mane a shake and then walked over to Xander's command chair and then curled up in a ball beside it for a nap, while Xander immediately became serious and his armor flickered and merged into that of The Leviathan's; everybody that worked in one of Xander's command centers was a loyal minion who knew of Xander's multiple aliases. They all believed it wasn't the place of the minion to question The Heterodyne.

Xander quickly sat himself down in the seat of the command chair and mentally commanded the connected computer systems, 'Situation threat report.'

The voice of Bob communed with Xander's mind, giving him an update on the situation in the blink of an eye. 'Sir, at 05:00 our time a large dimensional rift was noted by the satellite system, originating at longitude and latitude 26.550758,-70.702858. Computers verify the location as that of the Island of Themyscira. Queries of the satellite system show the image of bloody melee combat on the island for two days prior, then a large disembodied head appearing shortly before the island disappeared. We have a 98.2% match with a recognized plot, from your submitted memories, where Circe sends the Amazons to a hell dimension. In fact, Circe's head appeared in the sky over the Island shortly before it disappeared.'

Xander mentally cursed, thinking at hyper speeds as his brain literally communicated with the computer at speeds closer to those used by supercomputers as opposed to those used by humans. 'Why the fuck wasn't the fighting on the Island not inspected and a relief force of female Jägers sent to stop it?' Xander mentally spat the query at his computer.

The information stream that Bob was communicating to Xander was tinged with a cringe of regret, 'Xander, the treaty with the Amazons is only in the defense of external threats. The satellites clearly showed that the attackers were Amazons, thus the boundaries of our treaty would not allow us to get involved into what would be defined as a totally internal dispute within the Amazon nation.' Bob's voice in Xander's mind sounded apologetic.

Xander grimaced behind his Leviathan helmet as he continued to commune with his computer. In the command center around Xander the pace picked up as a troop of armored Jägers entered the room and situated themselves in the corners of the room to offer protection to Xander. Igor, Janna, Cassy, Magda and the Tara-Dora duo entered the room; having been informed that Xander had returned from his journey. None of the newly entered individuals said anything to Xander as they could see that he was motionless in the command chair; no doubt communicating with the computer systems.

'Show me a fast forward video of the battle and the disappearing act of the island.' Xander commanded grimly, and into his head was uploaded the video of the battle on the island.

In the video Xander saw flashes of light appear all over the island of Themyscira before the flashes deposited armed units of women wearing headbands and dust clothes commonly used in the Sahara desert to keep stinging sand away from the face. The women were mostly wielding swords and spears, though Xander saw several with bows and quivers of arrows strapped to the disc covered light armor that the attackers wore. The video was without sound, but Xander could clearly see the attackers ghost across the open expanses and into the houses, palaces and temples of the island. A little while later, the obvious fighting exploded out of windows, doors and into courtyards as blood flew and weapons flashed in the moonlight.

Xander snarled as he hated to see woman injured, and the blood was quickly flowing on both sides of the engagement as what he knew were the Bana-Mighdall Amazons were pushed back from the buildings and the bloodshed spread through the streets and open spaces of the city. A clinical eye told Xander that though the Bana-Mighdall were more bloodthirsty and aggressive in their combat styles, the Themyscirian Amazons were better trained overall due to their immortal life spans.

'Fast forward to the part where the head appears, I can't stand to watch this travesty in its entirety.' Xander mentally spat, and the screen blinked to the point where a clearly cackling silent head of the Witch Circe appeared. It was night again, and the camera on the video told Xander that the time was 0458 in the morning in Romania and probably mid evening in Themyscira.

'Freeze the film!' Xander ordered, capturing a direct picture of Circe's face as the witch had thrown back her head towards the sky in laughter; a motion that pointed Circe's illusionary head and face right at Xander's cameras and sensors floating in space.

Xander opened his eyes while sitting on the command chair, he turned his head to look to the left as his helmet told him that his minions and newly adopted family were standing there.

"I'll be with you in a second, it's good to see you and I wish I had the time to tell you about my journey and what I've learned, but it will have to wait." Xander said grimly through his helmet to Magda, Janna, Cassy and his three primary minions.

"Igor, I want a bounty put on Circe's head for twenty five million dollars, I want her killed immediately…" Xander commanded Igor angrily while at the same time the image of Circe's face from the video was put on the main screen of the command center.

"No!" Cassy yelled an interruption to Xander's command with a startled scared look on her face, and Igor's eyebrow raised as he turned to look at Xander adopted sister. Everybody in the command room stopped and turned to look at who would dare disagree with the Master.

Cassy looked frantically around, but then steeled herself and pulled her shoulders back and looked at Xander, "No Xander, there has to be another way. You promised me that you were different than Cain. I don't know what is going on, but there has to be a better way than having your first choice be the death of the person who is a problem."

Xander struggled with an inner growl, he couldn't remember the last time somebody had told him "No" since he got to this universe, but then he shook his head as he remembered this was Cassy, a person whom he was beginning to care for like a sister.

Mentally commanding his helmet to disappear, Xander was left garbed in the black suit and gloves with the blood red tie and he focused his attention to look at Cassy. Pointing to the screen Xander took a deep breath before answering Cassy's pleading statement, "See that woman there Cassy? That woman is a witch, and not in the Bed Knobs and Broomsticks or Harry Potter movie variety witch who only wants what's good for people. This is a turn people literally into frogs and then eat the frog's legs type of witch and she is trying to kill off all of the Amazons." Xander tried to explain to Cassy.

Cassy looked up at the picture, and then back at Xander and walked up next to him and stood looking down at Xander's seated figure. Cassandra Kalderash, formerly Cassandra Cain looked Xander straight in the eyes and told him, "I don't know what you're talking about with the Harry Potter movie thing or Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, but you told me on the roof that I wouldn't have to kill if I came and joined your family. But now you're going to kill somebody without a thought? When Cain had me kill a man, I read his death in his body language. Death is darkness and terror, then nothing. It's scary, and it shouldn't be your first answer to your problem." She stated, putting her hands on her hips and glaring down at Xander.

Xander's brain flipped through thoughts of just blowing off Cassy's statement, ignoring the girl, or even telling her she was naïve. But then the voice of Reason came to the forefront of his mind and added a point, 'She does have a point Xander. Rama Kushna warned us about walking the balance and I doubt our killing everybody who presented a problem to us would help us in our pursuit of staying on the side of good. That said, Circe is known for being terribly weak to the plant Ilex aquifolium, otherwise known as Holly. If we could infect Circe with the plant holly then we could disrupt the spell.' The voice of reason suggested while reading a book on Xander's memories about the Witch Circe from the DC comic book universe.

Xander sat back in his chair and looked up at Cassy while he thought about her statement as well as the information that his inner voice of reason had just told him.

'You're getting weak Xander. The only thing that matters is making sure your enemy is dead and can't hurt you or the pack again.' The voice of the Primal growled his two cents worth in Xander's thoughts.

'Yes, but Circe has been known to come back from the dead every time she has been killed. Further, the witch has been defined as being immortal and a goddess class sorceress. My supposition is that we neutralize her powers through some sort of holly poisoning.' The voice of reason countered, and the Primal huffed in response.

Xander slowly nodded to Cassy and gave her a small smile, "Ok Cassy." He said, and saw the girl smile back triumphantly at him.

Xander leaned forward quickly in the command chair with a smirk and jabbed her in the side with his finger, hitting a ticklish spot and causing Cassy to dance away from Xander's reach with a little laugh.

With Xander's smile the minions in the command center went back to work with a silent shrug.

Magda smiled at Cassy and patted her on the shoulder, "Good job child. You will make a good sister to Alexander." The old woman said, and Cassy smiled back up at her.

Xander ignored the byplay between Magda and Cassandra and instead focused his attention on Igor, "Belay that order Igor, we are going to try something different." Xander commanded as Igor nodded in agreement.

Xander waved his hand, and a shimmering holographic screen appeared before him.

"Call Alec." Xander commanded, and the system connected Xander with Alec Holland.

Xander got a view of the back of Alec's head, but the former Swamp Thing turned around and faced Xander as he heard the 'ding' sound that accompanied the communications connection coming alive.

"Hello Xander, how can I help you?" Alec questioned with a smile.

Xander answered back as he got serious, "I need you to see about making some of those biological nano-clanks, but I need them infused with the holly plant, can you do that for me immediately?"

Alec smirked back at the screen and his eyes seemed to twinkle in amusement as he responded to Xander, "Magda said you might need me to make up large doses of the nano-clanks with an infusion of holly, but she didn't know what they would be used for. They are ready now."

Xander turned his head slowly to the left and raised a single eyebrow in silent question to Magda.

The old woman merely smirked while looking at Xander with her milky white eyes and made a dismissive gesture, "I saw Cassandra teaching you the error of your ways, and that this would lead to the best possible outcome for this situation, but you are going to need outside help in order to achieve your victory over the Sorceress Circe. My second sight has been unable to see anything regarding the witch or this situation." Magda stated before turning to smile down at Cassy.

"You have done a good thing child; continue to be one of his voices of conscious when he cannot see the alternatives." Magda stated to Cassandra.

Janna gave Cassy a one armed hug, and then both Kalderash girls turned to smirk at Xander.

Xander merely shook his head and gave a wry smile at the interaction between the two original Kalderash ladies and their new adopted one before turning back to the screen with Alec on it.

"We have a sorceress who is allergic to holly Alec, and we are going to need to dose her when we find her." Xander stated, and Alec acknowledged with a nod.

"We're ready when you are Xander. Just say the word and I can have a batch teleported anywhere in the world." Alec offered.

Xander nodded, "Thanks again Alec, you and your plants just may save a lot of lives again. I owe you again." Xander acknowledged.

Alec just waved off Xander's statement dismissively, "Not at all Xander. What Magda said didn't give me any details, but said that the situation would be life or death. I've got to get back to it but let me know when you need me."

With that, Alec cut the connection and Xander took another deep breath and the steeled himself for what he had to do next.

With a mental command to his nano-clank clothing, Xander's Leviathan helmet covered his face and he faced the screen.

It was time to contact the Justice League, and especially Wonder Woman.

Batman was running the Watchtower's shift at the monitor room and was paging through information on figures of importance while keeping an eye on the communicator. It was a quiet afternoon for the most part, and Nightwing and Robin were keeping things under control in Gotham as it was early morning and most of the crooks that populated the dark city had gone to bed with the first light of dawn.

A small beeping sound caught Batman's attention, signaling that a communications message was being broadcast on a Justice League signal but not from any recognized Justice League communicator.

"Hmmm, that's interesting." Batman muttered before plugging in a few buttons to start a trace program before answering the call.

"Batman here." He stated as he swiveled to face the communications screen.

A mirrored black helmeted visage with a nicely tailored black suit and red tie appeared on the screen, with a blank metal wall behind the caller's head. The image presented itself on the Watchtower's communication system and Batman scowled and growled out, "Leviathan…"

"Ah good, you've heard of me Dark Knight. Therefore we can get right down to business." The Leviathan stated with a slight quirk of the head to the side.

"I have no business with tyrants and dictators." Batman bit back with a glare at the screen.

"Now now Bruce, we both know that Wayne Enterprises does business with several countries which are currently controlled by Dictators, thus we both know that isn't true. Besides, I thought you Justice League were in the business of stopping genocide?" The Leviathan casually stated with a wave of his hand, as if mentioning Batman's biggest secret was something to bandy about in casual conversation.

Batman turned pale for a second when the Leviathan called him by name, but then the dark look that scared so many of Gotham's criminals grew across his face, "Are you threatening me?" Batman questioned, taking both the comment about his name and the statement about genocide as a threat to not only himself but to the people he and the Justice League defended.

The Leviathan looked straight into the screen and it was as if a dark menacing aura seemed to grow out of The Leviathan, "I assure you that I do not make threats…" The Leviathan left hanging for a second before continuing, "That said, what I am calling you about is deadly serious. I need to contact Wonder Woman as the Island of Themyscira has come under attack by the Witch Circe and has been sent to a hell dimension." The Leviathan laid it all out there, briefly catching Batman off guard with such an odd statement.

Batman's thoughts were momentarily scattered as they quickly assessed The Leviathan's statement before the Detective responded, "How do I know your information is true, the city is invisible to all surveillance technologies?"

Xander smiled behind his mask and tilted his head to the side while gesturing to the screen, "It may be invisible to YOUR surveillance technology, but it is not to mine. I'm sending the video to your system now."

"Wait." Batman growled, "Our system is encrypted and you can't just connect to it…" Batman started to interject, only to see a screen next to him recognize that a file was being uploaded.

The next thing Batman knew a video of the attack and disappearance of Themyscira was projected on the main screen of the monitor room, complete with freeze frame of Circe's face for a few seconds before showing the island disappear.

Batman growled and wheeled on the image of The Leviathan. A noise to his left grabbed Bruce's attention before he could respond to the Dictator's hacking of the Watchtower's computer. As if to add insult to injury, the noise was the trace program notifying Batman that it had run its search and that the communications message of The Leviathan supposedly originated in the Batcave.

Turning to glare at the image of the black helmeted ruler, Batman growled, "Cute."

Xander again smiled behind his mask, it was fun getting under Batman's skin even though the situation was serious. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." Xander started while speaking from under the Leviathan's mask, getting a responding rumbling growl from the caped crusader.

Xander ignored batman's rumble. "As I was saying, I need you to notify Wonder Woman that her nation has been attacked, I have it on good authority that the Amazons have been sent to a hell dimension where time passes more quickly than here. Thus time is of the essence in finding Circe and breaking the spell." The Leviathan clearly stated.

"And just how 'good' is this authority of yours?" Batman questioned while putting stress on the word "good" as if to imply that the Leviathan's sources shouldn't be trusted.

Now it was Xander's turn to growl, "They are the same sources that told Kal-El that his adopted father would have a heart attack if it wasn't looked at, and the same one who informed you that he knew your future and that of your ward Dick Grayson." The Leviathan did not sound amused.

"The Grey Knight." Batman growled back with a glare, remembering the uncommon trouncing he received from the forces of the metal behemoth.

"Exactly. My cousin no doubt sends his regards. As soon as we find out which dimension the Amazons have been sent to I plan on sending in the Grey Knight and his forces to help with their protection and ferry whatever supplies he can bring." The Leviathan agreed. Behind the cover of Xander's helmet plans and counter plans were furiously screaming through his head about how to try and figure out just where in the multiverse the Amazons had exactly been sent.

"Understood. I'll get the Justice League looking for the witch." Batman stated and reached forward to disconnect the call with The Leviathan, only to have the communications system repeatedly deny the Dark Knight the ability to shut off the link.

"Use the plant holly if you just want to interrupt the spell and don't want to kill the witch." The Leviathan responded, ignoring the obvious attempts by Batman to disconnect the call. "I've no doubt you've probably got a sample of holly on that amazing utility belt of yours. Please send Wonder Woman my regards and sorrow at the plight of her people. The Leviathan's Empire will uphold the treaty with her country and work to safeguard the Amazons any way that we can." The Leviathan answered before cutting the signal himself.

Batman glared at the empty monitor for several seconds.

Finally Batman thought to himself, 'What a bastard,' before turning to notify Wonder Woman and the rest of the League about the emergency.

"What a bastard." Xander said out loud to no one in particular, referring to Batman.

"Yes sir." Igor resolutely agreed.

Xander stroked the chin of his helmet as his thoughts flashed from one thing to the next on what needed to be done in order to help save the Amazon nation from being slaughtered at the hands of countless demons.

A minute later, Xander had his plan.

Turning towards his chief minion, Xander ordered, "Igor, I want the Arcanic University fully concentrated on either tracking the trail of Circe's magic spell on Themyscira back to Circe, or scrying the hell out of the multiverse, um, I mean, scrying until they can find which hell in the multiverse the Amazons went to."

"Very well sir." Igor answered while both plugging in the command on his datapad while ignoring Xander's play on words.

Xander, for his part, hadn't even really noticed his wording as he was holding a full debate and planning session inside his own head courtesy of the voices.

"See if you can get the dimensional portal laboratory to use the upgraded version of The Black Heterodyne's dimensional transport system as a looking glass to find them also. I want this to be our primary effort at the moment, the primary effort next to the building of the floating city that is… still need to come up with a name for it." Xander finished with his statement trailing off in thought as he got distracted for a moment.

"Yes Sir, I'll pass on the orders immediately." Igor responded, helping to snap Xander out of his distraction and back to the present.

Xander gave himself a little mental shake before adding.

"And I want our spy network looking for that Witch. I want you to contact the Amazonian Embassy in New York, the one assigned to the United Nations. Get in contact with their people and coordinate the witch hunt. Put Alec in charge of the actual takedown as far as our people go; I'm sure Alec can infuse his body with enough holly that Circe won't be able to touch him." Xander commanded.

With that, Xander hopped out of his chair and started marching out of the conference room.

"I'll be in the metallurgy, armor, and armaments laboratory. I need to upgrade the Grey Knights armor with the current shield technology and with a few weapons that should serve better against flesh and blood demons." Xander stated over his shoulder.

With that, The Leviathan left the command center, guarded closely by his self appointed Jäger bodyguards who fell into step around him.

For his part, Xander didn't even notice the protection detail, so lost in thought of what he wanted to build.

The last thing the minions in the command center heard The Leviathan mutter as he walked out the door was, "Hmmm, what to use to make the Dreadknight system…"

A week later…

"A WEEK! A whole Fucking week!" Xander cursed and slammed the fist of his Leviathan outfit garbed hand into the wall and severely dented the wall's metal surface with the shape of his knuckles.

Wheeling on Igor, Xander glared and snapped, "You're telling me that we have a witch actively powering a magic spell that sends an entire island to another dimension, and we can't even track it?" Xander's eyes briefly glowed with bits of green backlighting, suggesting that some of his more primitive and primal instinctual characteristics were poking through his thin veneer of control.

Igor was unswayed by his Master's anger and merely answered straight faced, "Unfortunately yes Sir. Both the dimensional transport technology laboratory and the Arcanic University have reported no luck in either tracking the origin of Circe's ongoing magic or the end destination of the spell. Our intelligence department, working in tandem with the Justice League and the Amazonian Embassy, has sadly also reported a similar lack of results in locating a hint of the Witch. The news has also been quiet full of reports of Wonder Woman literally tearing through several of Circe's old haunts in the Greek isles… The Greek government has been quiet cross with her for the destruction of part of the Parthenon." Igor finished reporting, reading and quickly summarizing the situation as it scrolled across the ever present computer pad that the chief minion carried.

"Damn it!" Xander spat and kicked a wooden chair next to him; destroying the chair in a shower of splinters and the fluffy innards of the upholstery.

Xander started to pace back and forth in frustration, passing a trail from one side to the other of a random meeting room that was situated near the command center in the middle of Castle Bob.

Xander had originally thought that finding Circe would be relatively easy. Bing bang boom, they find the Witch, they either inject the Witch or swarm her with a cloud of holly based biological nano-clanks, and the Amazons come home. Everybody would be happy, but no. At this point Xander was feeling useless and ineffective, and no matter how much he tried to think out of the box or in the box, he couldn't figure out a way to either help the Amazons trapped in their hell dimension, nor could he figure out how to track down Circe. Xander was beginning to think that it would take the time period of the close to six months that had happened in the comic book.

The only problem, and it was a major one, with waiting for the six months to pass while hoping that Themyscira returned was that while only six months passed in the DC comics universe more than ten years would have passed for the Amazons who were fighting for their lives. It was canon from the comic book that he had read long ago. However for all Xander knew about this DC universe, given that it didn't seem to fit exactly with any one cartoon or comic book version of DC comics, the Amazons could already have been fighting for more than a year or had even been killed off by the swarms of demons.

"Damn it to hell!" Xander spat as he paced back the opposite direction and disintegrated another chair with a well aimed kick as he passed it by. "Why the hell did Rama Kushna send me back here if I can't actually do anything?" Xander ranted to himself.

Igor merely stood silently watching the Master pace back and forth. It was at times like this that the minion knew it was best to just let the Heterodyne think without adding any possible extraneous information to the thought stream.

"I mean, she specifically told me that she was sure I would find the right means to bargain their safety." Xander cursed, waving his hands around in agitation as he reached the end of his track and turned to walk back the other direction.

Xander paused in mid step, impossibly stopping in mid motion with one leg in the air and bent forward to the point where the normal individual could not possibly counterbalance. Then again Xander could fly, but Xander's ability to fly was neither here nor there.

"Bargain… that's it!" Xander yelled with a smile as his smirk grew across his face and a crazy gleam came to his eyes.

Xander mentally commanded his Leviathan helmet to disappear as he called out loud to the ceiling, "Mxyzptlk! I want to talk to you." Xander spun around looking to see if the imp would appear.

However the fifth dimensional imp neither answered nor appeared.

Rather than being put off by the slight, Xander's smirk grew larger, "Well then Mister Mxyzptlk, I guess you wouldn't be interested in a bargain that would see some pranks being played on Superman…" Xander didn't even have a chance to add anything more when there was a 'POP' sound in front of him and the image of Mister Mxyzptlk was left floating there.

"You've got my interest. What are you offering." Mxyzptlk questioned with a gleam in his eye and a faraway look, like the imp was contemplating the fun and games that could be his to enjoy watching.

Xander saw the look on the imps face and did a little mental happy dance that the idea might work.

"A bargain, a prank and fun and games with Superman in return for a question honestly answered to the fullest of your ability." Xander made the initial offer.

Mxyzptlk looked at Xander and snapped his fingers, and a little floating lazy boy recliner chair appeared in the air for the imp to sit in.

Smirking back at Xander the imp stated, "I wasn't born yesterday lad, let's define the terms of the game. Each prank has to be a major one, something that drives the Boyscout around the twist for a while until he can figure it out, and there are some questions I can't answer for you such as where Circe is hiding out."

Xander smiled and then quirked an eyebrow at the imp, "What… Aren't you powerful enough to tell me where a little old witch is?" Xander teased the imp, hoping to play on the near deities pride to get the imp to tell Xander where Circe was. After all, that would be the easiest way to get the Amazons back.

Mxyzptlk frowned at Xander and replied, "Don't make me angry boy, or I'll take my toys and go home along with any answers to questions you might have. I'm not about to piss off that bitch Hecate by messing with Circe who is her avatar. There's a reason why Hecate is often associated with barking dogs and female bitches, she's nasty if crossed and my wife would have a fit if I messed with that goddess."

Xander held up his hands in surrender on that point, and inside his mind he questioned whether he could even think about plan B, or if it would give it away to the powerful imp. Decided to check and see if the mind reading by Rama Kushna was something to do with being in her realm or if the Nth metal really protected Xander's mind from the imp, Xander decided to do a bit of a cagey test given the fact that he knew the imp could be tricked.

"Hey, ok ok, no messing with Hecate. I understand your perspective on it." Xander answered and nodded vigorously before smiling back at Mxyzptlk. "So about the major pranks, can you see in my mind the kind of things I'd plan to pull on Superman if you agreed?" Xander asked with a smile.

Mxyzptlk frowned and crossed his arms across his chest, "No, you've got that bloody stupid Nth Metal in your system and it's stymieing up my ability to see your thoughts. Used to be I could at least enjoy the voices in your head as a rolling commentary on what was going on with you, but now I can't. I don't like it that you've cheated at my little game, not one bit." The imp stated with a glare at Xander.

Xander fought to keep the smile from appearing on his face while inside his head his voices were doing a conga line version of the snoopy dance for at least one success in his current situation.

Xander struggled to remain professional with the imp, but answered with only a slight smile on his face. "Ah, well sorry about that, but I had to stop magic users from attacking me. You wouldn't want our game to end too soon due to some random spell caster nailing me, would you?" Xander asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No… I guess not." The imp respond with a bit of a whine in his little voice, before looking shrewdly at Xander. "Now back to these pranks. I'll agree to answer a question fully and honestly in repayment for a prank on Superman, also known as Clark Kent. And I'll be the judge of whether the prank is fitting or not."

Xander smirked and shook his head in the negative, "Uh uh, I'm not going to get tricked into that. How about this, Igor over there is probably bloodthirsty enough to your liking in pranks, and he wants what is best for me. So have my chief minion be the judge of whether or not the prank is up to the level of a member of House Heterodyne. What do you say?" Xander counter offered.

"Done!" Mxyzptlk said with a smile, figuring he got the better of the deal.

"Done." Xander agreed while thinking he got the better of the deal. Xander reached out his hand to shake the imp's.

Both parties shook hands, and then Xander's smirk grew across his face. "So I can't ask you where Circe is, but tell me this, which dimension was this dimension's Island of Themyscira and its Amazon's sent to?"

Mxyzptlk smirked back at Xander with a look that said, "I know something you don't know."

"I already told you once that a nasty little hell dimension lay on the other side of your transphased dimensional energy sphere. Where do you think all of that stuff that you zap with your Boom-stick goes to after all? The same hell dimension the Amazons are in I tell you." The imp answered the question fully. "It's the hell dimension closest to this dimension, well, that is unless you want to bump into Tartarus or of Nekron's dimension of the unliving." Mxyzptlk added as an aside.

Xander's eyes got large, and he looked flabbergasted for a moment. Inside Xander's head the conga line stopped in mid step, and Xander's voices all gave each other a surprised look. Only the Primal, who hadn't been willing to dance, was unaffected by the information.

'Snap out of it bub. You can't show weakness to an enemy.' The Primal growled, and kicked one of the walls of Xander's mental living room to jolt Xander out of his stupor.

Xander shook his head and looked back at the imp for a few more seconds, blinking to try and figure out what to ask next.

Mxyzptlk smirked back at Xander's confusion, "That's one prank, and it better be a good one." The imp looked to Igor to make sure that the judge of the pranks was paying attention, and Igor gave Mxyzptlk a resolute nod.

Finally Xander snapped out of it as the voices in his head huddled together to brainstorm. 'Aha, I've got it!' The voice of logic stated in Xander's mind before continuing, 'Ask him…'

"I know you are restricting me or my friends from contacting or returning to my home dimension, but are you able to restrict me from heading to the same dimension that the Amazons are in?" Xander asked hesitantly and hopefully.

Mxyzptlk frowned and crossed his arms angrily across his chest, "Drat and double drat, foiled again." The little floating figure cursed while glaring at Xander, "No! I can't stop you from leaving this dimension and going to that hell dimension, but I can stop you from trying to get back to your stupid little hellmouth from some other dimension."

The fifth dimension imp continued to glare at Xander, but with a tiny bit of smugness to his face, "I've locked you from going back to your home dimension no matter how you go about trying to get there, but I haven't stopped you from traveling to other dimensions. Same thing as when you phased Romania out of this dimension, I can't stop that and stay within the rules of the game we started playing, but don't think you're going to get a backdoor pass to get home!" The imp finished, shaking a finger at Xander.

Xander's smile grew across his face for a second, waivered at the thought that he couldn't get home to Willow and Buffy, but then grew a bit more serene with the knowledge that he could finally do something to help out the Amazons.

Smiling at the imp, Xander decided to ask one more question and make it a good three pranks against Superman in trade for the information. With a triumphant smile Xander asked, "Ok then Mxyzptlk, for round three of our little truth for a dare game, how can I successfully take my military forces to help the Amazons?"

Mxyzptlk smirked evilly at Xander, and Xander got a sudden inkling that he wasn't going to like the answer to this question.

"In short, you can't get your forces to help the Amazons. Ha ha ha ha ha!" Mxyzptlk answered, and then laughed at the devastated look on Xander's face.

'That bastard.' Xander thought with a frown, secure in the knowledge that the imp really couldn't read Xander's mind.

"You should see the look on your face! Ha! Priceless." Mxyzptlk pointed at Xander and chuckled before wiping fake tears from his little eyes and continuing, "In short, you're the only one who could actually survive the full dimensional travel with the tools that you have. That neat little Spark you have inside of you allows you to do the darn near impossible, and one of those is be transported via that energy matrix thing-a-ma-bobber you created and used to accidentally send yourself here. Eh, it should have a radius of about seven at ground level and about twenty upwards, but that's dimensional logic for you, never a sphere when you want one."

The Imp continued with a shrug of his little shoulders. "Anyway, you try and bring along any hitchhikers besides yourself, and splat, they all die. Not even intelligent machines would make it through the portal. Those bike gang members you sent through were so much ground meat by the time they made it over there that the demons thought it was raining food. Now the cars and vehicles though, that's another story. Those made it through ok, but not much you can pack into a seven by twenty foot cylinder, and it doesn't drop you off in the same place every time, so I have to tell you that trying to create supply drops to the Amazons is more likely to end up feeding random demons than actually helping them out." The imp finished before snapping his fingers and causing a Mai-tai with a straw and colorful little drink umbrella to appear in his hand. The little imp pulled the lever on his floating lazy boy and the foot cushion popped out as the chair reclined and the imp kicked back to relax with the smug look on his face.

Mxyzptlk took a sip of his drink and sighed in relaxation. Before looking at the deeply thinking Xander.

"Now that said, I'd suggest that you not go for it and just stay here and wait it out. It's not like too many of the Amazons will end up as demon chow, in fact a couple of them might even make it to return to this universe." The imp added with a shrug before making a slurping sound on his straw and again sighing in relaxation.

Xander turned to glare at the imp, really truly glare at such casual negligence towards mortal life and the loss of it at the hands of demons, and Xander struggled to keep himself from letting a growl slip out as he was reminded about Jesse and all of his classmates that disappeared due to the creatures that go bump in the night.

Still, a few seconds passed while Xander glared silently at the imp, and the imp just sat their smirking and sipping his drink.

However a moment later a little light seemed to come on behind Xander's eyes and a bloodthirsty grin started to grow across Xander's face.

"I'm going to go." Xander said with a big smile to the imp.

"What?" Mister Mxyzptlk said startled, his drink rattling in his hand as his lazy boy shot him back to the full and upright position. "But you could end up in the totally wrong place, not able to help the Amazons at all, and not able to come back to this dimension when the spell gets broken? You'd be stuck there until you die or get eaten." The imp explained looking at Xander wide eyed, not understanding the lad's new suicidal tendencies.

"I'm going to go anyway, and you've already told me that you can't stop me." Xander said with a crazy grin on his face and a mad gleam shining from his eyes. "So you might as well make sure that I land in the right spot, shouldn't you." Xander finished, tilting his head to the side. With the wide eerie grin on Xander's face and his head cocked to the side, Xander was doing a fair approximation of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.

"That's out of the question, why should I help you deprive me of my fun and games watching you here in this dimension, and you wouldn't be able to do your pranks on Superman if you went." Mxyzptlk explained, trying to point out weaknesses in Xander's plan.

"I'm going anyway, so you better make sure I get there in one piece if you want to have any hope of me pranking Superman for you…" Xander finished with an evil smirk. "Besides, I'll make it worth your while, throw in an extra prank and make it a total of four." Xander offered, padding the deal.

Mister Mxyzptlk frowned, and then pouted while staring at Xander.

Xander continued his crazy smiled grin at the imp, and the imp continued frowning right back at Xander in silence.

Five minutes passed until one of them finally broke.

"Fine! I'll help you appear near the Amazons, but I want you to up the number to ten pranks total." Mxyzptlk stated angrily with a huff.

"I'll up it to five and that's my final offer. If I end up dying in that dimension, all of your fun and games with watching my chaos ends, and you won't get a single one of your pranks on Superman." Xander countered with that same insane grin plastered about his face.

Mxyzptlk's jaw dropped open, and he stared at Xander with confusion that the puny third dimensional being would willingly throw his life away about an extra five pranks.

"Are you crazy or something?" Mxyzptlk asked stunned.

"Yes, and something." Xander answered back with a happy quip and floated up into the air and sat Indian style facing Mxyzptlk with that insane gleam in Xander's eyes and that manic smile on his face.

Mxyzptlk just blinked a few times, stared at Xander a bit longer, and then finally broke out in laughter.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! I knew I liked you boy. Now that's the kind of chaos that I can enjoy, none of this expected stuff. Deal, I'll land you near where the island was dropped when you do your little dimensional hop." The imp stated with a smile and stuck out his hand.

Xander lost the crazy look, and just smiled back at the imp and stuck out his own hand and shook Mister Mxyzptlk's hand.

"Deal, five pranks it is. Now if you excuse me, I have some packing to do and some messages to send." Xander replied and dropped back to the ground to land on his feet.

"See you later Mixy." Xander said with a jaunty wave as he headed for the door.

The imp frowned and yelled after the leaving Xander, "Its Mxyzptlk!"

"Whatever!" Xander yelled back over his shoulder as he left the room at a jog.

"Impudent young whipper snapper. No respect for their betters these days." Mister Mxyzptlk snapped back at the now long gone Xander. Then with a 'Pop' the fifth dimension imp was gone.

After Xander and then the imp left, Igor continued standing in the conference room for a moment, and as the seconds clicked by the Chief Minion's bloodthirsty smile grew and grew until the chief minion just shook his head and moved to exit the room.

"Such a good master, so much chaos and bloodshed. Why his great great great grandfather would be so proud, storming the pits of hell in order to gain himself a tribe of warrior women. Why not since the Heterodyne alliance with the Skifander throne has there been a female warrior tribe in the family, and not to mention that he gets to go to a playground like hell. Oh I am so proud of that boy." Igor couldn't keep the pride inside himself and it had to slip out in muttered words as he walked towards the door.

With one more look at the broken chairs and the dent in the room with a fond smile on his face, Igor shut off the lights.

Another day had passed in fast paced preparation for The Grey Knight's trip to hell, and they weren't packing for a social engagement. Xander had doubled the size of the backpack and then made two of them for carrying his gear. One of those packs would carry all of the ammunition, spare weaponry, and enough hydroponics equipment and spare parts to keep Xander fighting for at least three years… hopefully. The other pack was stuffed to the gills with a special surprise for the demons that were assaulting the Amazons; hopefully something that would see giving the battered forces some relief from the no doubt constant warfare.

Xander held no doubts as to how screwed the Amazon probably were while stuck in the hell dimension, they didn't call it hell for nothing. He knew from experience that even though a girl could be a fearsome warrior, it didn't make her invincible. After all, it was all fine and dandy for Buffy to face three to six vampires or demons at a time but even The Slayer would have been overwhelmed by wave after wave of flesh eating demons.

For probably the seventieth time Xander thought to himself, 'Are you sure you want to do this?'

Yet it wasn't one of the little voices that answered him, it was his heart that told Xander the answer he needed to hear. 'You never backed down from a fight with the darkness when you were only a simple human without any powers or real skills, and you definitely aren't about to start now.' Xander affirmed to himself as he checked the bindings on the leather looking satchels once again and made sure that his lightsaber and his new spare blade were in place and ready.

At this, the voice of Xander's reason did add in an additional point to the inner argument that Xander was going through. 'Xander, they might not be your girls, but you've never been one to let any girls get hurt if you thought you could stop it; it's how you met Willow after all. Just because several of the woman you've known are quite capable of taking care of themselves doesn't mean that you can't still believe that chivalry means something and that women should be protected as much if not more than men. If you are looking for some omen or sign that you should go, then you should note that your first name does mean Protector of Mankind in Greek after all, there must be some sort of reason that you are the one being sent to save the nation of ancient Greek warrior women.' Reason explained before closing a book in Xander's mind and switching attention to a new mental task. The other voices in Xander's head were curiously quiet also, all of them involved in little mental activities that were more to kill time before all was ready for Xander's invasion of the hell dimension.

Xander nodded in understanding of what his voice of reason was telling him and stood up just as a knock sounded on the door.

Igor walked into the room and looked at Xander. Xander was wearing his solid black nano-clank armor with his face visible; he would be wearing it as an added layer of protection under his Grey Knight armor.

"Your Grey Knight armor and added systems are ready for you Sir. Also Wonder Woman is at the launch site wanting to talk to you." Igor informed his master.

Xander frowned yet looked determined. "Is she still demanding that she be allowed to accompany me on the transfer?" Xander questioned as he lifted each pack up onto a shoulder, balancing the weight so that he could move forward without teetering to one side or the other.

Igor led the way out the door in order to clear the path through the Castle to where the Grey Knight armor was situated. Along the way through the living areas of the Castle, Xander's most trusted minions would stop and bow to Xander and wish him a "safe battle," "good bloodshed," or "happy invasion."

Yeah, minions were wired a bit differently like that…

Xander tuned out their words but nodded in silent thanks as he listened to his Chief Minion answer his question.

"Yes sir, she again repeated that it is her duty as the Champion of Themyscira to protect her people, though I believe that it is mostly words at this point. Janna and Magda have explained exactly what would happen to her if she tried to come along for your trip, using the cover story that your dimensional transportation technology only works with your physiology." Igor explained.

Xander gave a sharp single nod and turned the corner into his armory that was just down the hall from Xander's main living areas.

There in the center of the all metal room hung the hinged open and waiting armor of The Grey Knight, hanging via large chains and metal clamps that held it off the floor for easier use and tinkering.

The helmet sat on a stand to the right of the hanging armor, cables dangling out of the helmet and plugged into the metal floor; finishing updating the latest software and data functions into Xander's Jarvis AI system.

To the left of the armor was a weapons rack with the grey metal power glaive situated next to a new arm mounted version Toastmaster automatic repeater. The latest multi-barreled version of the Toastmaster had been dubbed the 4000 series given that its lethality and range had nearly been doubled by using magnetic fields to surround and compact more plasma into every round in standard mode yet leaving the weapon to work as a flamethrower if the user didn't mind the faster expenditure of fuel.

However the most fearsome of Xander's weapons on the rack was probably the smallest and most innocent looking item, a simple belt with a clip of small apple sized spheres. The saying went that close only counts in horse shoes and hand-grenades, but the term "close" was relative when said grenade contained a marble sized miniature plasma signature held in a tightly compacted graviton field; in short they were miniaturized suns in a handy dandy disposable size. Press the button on the grenade while hoping to hell you don't drop it, throw it with super strength or run away very very quickly, and a rice grain sized super-dense material is injected via a tiny rail gun right through the containment wall and into the miniature sun right before said containment field failed. Truly the inclusion of Xander's miniature Dyson sphere suns had helped boost Xander's weapon technology to completely new levels of lethality. Xander had a belt of twelve of these grenades total and he had been unwilling to test or waste any of them given that he had only been able to create the twelve before it was time to leave.

The upgrades to the armor and weaponry were few but fearsome, quality over quantity. Still, Xander wasn't sure it would be enough for what was promising to be one "hell" of a ride through the abyss.

Steeling his nerves and concentrating on the task at hand, Xander took a deep breath and let it out before starting the last check of the armor.

Stepping forward, Xander shrugged off the two insanely heavy packs and walked up to the armor and looked it over. The new upgrades were subtle yet clear if you knew what you were looking at.

Newly adorning the back of the armor was a black cape with the Grey Knight's Heterodyne crest in gold, the trilobite emblazoned on a skull, yet the cloak rippled like no fabric seen on earth before for it was more of the nano-clank fabric and a living weave of tiny robots made up its very structure.

Xander smirked while looking at it, for it was another one of those instances where he was cheating at the rules that Mxyzptlk had set out for the transport to the hell dimension. Ok, so they weren't so much rules as warnings as to what would happen to anything intelligent that tried to hitchhike on Xander's trip to hell.

'Then again, I've always been fuzzy about that whole rule and warning thing.' Xander thought to himself as he walked around his armor and fingered the fabric on the back of the Grey Knight's armor. 'Mind over matter, I think there for it is, or isn't in this case. Well I at least hope this works, either way it will be a good test of Rama Kushna's words and the power of the Spark. If it doesn't work, then no biggie…though Jarvis might be a loss.' Xander finished thinking and examining the cloak with a mental shrug before walking flipping up the cloak and examining the back where it looked like a vented radiator system had been installed against the formerly seamless back plate.

"Good, the final product looks like it should get somebody off my back in a hurry and help with that heat sink problem with the firewall." Xander muttered to himself while dropping the cloak down.

Taking one last look around, Xander turned his body towards the door with his back to the armor. Taking a deep breath, Xander lifted his arms and floated up off the ground backwards and into the cradled innards of the behemoth armor in a smooth seemingly practiced move. Xander's under layer of black nano-clank body armor seemed to shimmer as if electrical currents were passing over its surface, and the underlying armor bonded itself to the insides of the primarily Nth Metal based suit of Grey Knight armor.

Pneumatic seals hissed as bolts whirred and ratcheted down into the locked position, the clamshell design of the chest compartment closed shut with a clank before the seams on the armor shimmered and melted together until no discernible chink in the armor could be found.

The tiny clicks of the sounds of Xander's fingers flexing inside the armored gauntlets and rotating his wrists you could hear the slight sound of the sliding ball bearings of the manual control system before it was drowned out by a "HUMMMMMMM" that filled the room. The power armor turned on and the suits system connected the armor's internal sensor system to the nano-clanks inside Xander's body; effectively merging man and machine and giving Xander absolute control of the most minute feature of his upgraded Grey Knight system.

Xander opened his eyes, and nodded at Igor who was standing near the door watching as Xander suited up.

Igor nodded in silent understanding, and pressed a few buttons on the computer data pad in his hands, the heavy thick clamps holding the armor off the ground released, dropping the juggernaut of a Grey Knight system to the ground with a heavy "KA-CLUNK."

Xander nodded again to Igor before going through a few range of motion tests.

Xander's face was a mask of concentration, lips clenched and eyes constantly shifting and reviewing the exterior of his armor as he rotated his arms, waist, and then picked up and dropped each leg bending at the knee. A few steps to the side while twisting were performed, and then Xander mentally ordered the claws to come out of the fingers of the Grey Knight armor.

Claws that had destroyed so many vampires in a short span of time seemed to bubble and melt out of the fingertips of the matte grey armor, the claws adding just another level of sinister malevolence to the already skull bedecked armor.

Raising a claw to his eye level to look at it, Xander tipped his head to the side while turning over his hand back and forth. With a slight mental command the fine blade edge of the flickering transporter fields extended along the fingers' length for assured lethality.

Xander smirked a bit of an evil cocky smile and his eyes dimpled with smile lines as he checked his second clawed hand before canceling the melee defense system.

By the door Igor put his hand to his ear and nodded to himself before looking up and addressing Xander. "Sir, your ride is ready and the ammo has been fully loaded."

Xander turned towards Igor and gritted his teeth.

"Ok Igor, let's get this party started." Xander stated while turning and picking up the skull like helmet with the glowing red optical sensor eyes in the depths of its sockets. A new red glow came from the nasal cavity where the nose would have been on the face, as Xander figured a true predator used the sense of smell just as much if not more than sound and sight. The final effect made it look like hellfire was shining from within the skull, backlighting the shadows that the dark grey material formed in the nooks and crannies of the helmet.

As Xander lifted the helmet from its resting place on the stand, the cables disconnected with a pop and a hiss of gases being released and the helmet's eyes flashed briefly before settling into a steady hollow blood red light as Xander set the helmet down on his head.

Darkness covered Xander's vision for half a moment as he heard the pneumatic and electrical welds and locks secure the helmet in place. The screen before his eyes shimmered with a neon green light that seemed to drip down from the top of interior of the helmet, and then Xander's view was overlaid with a mix of the external sensors as well as a heads up display.

A voice that was translated directly to the nano-clanks in Xander's brain, making it sound like the British voice of the Jarvis AI, announced. "Grey Knight system is fully secure and at one hundred percent operating capacity Sir. Mental integration also at one hundred percent. Welcome back Grey Knight."

Xander smirked evilly, "Thank you Jarvis." Xander bent to the right and grabbed the Toastmaster 4000 with his right hand before securing it to the forearm of the gauntlet on his left arm right below the elbow with the barrels stopping just above the knuckles on that arm.

"Will you be saying any parting words with your ladies sir? The Chateau and RedTree also send their best wishes and happy hunting." Jarvis informed Xander.

Xander secured the belt of grenades around his waist and then picked up the glaive and then moved his eight foot tall bulk forward towards the bags he had left on the ground. Bending down to sling one over each shoulder, Xander answered his AI. "I wished them goodbye this morning and gave Cassandra a hug and a kiss goodbye at breakfast. The Grey Knight cannot be associated with them if I wish to keep the personalities separate and keep the girls safe."

Turning to address Igor, Xander smiled behind his armor as he gave final orders to his chief steward of his Empire, Xander's Darth Vader voice coming out deep and rumbling. "I'm counting on you to keep things together if something happens to me Igor. Protect the girls, protect the Empire, and if I don't come back and you absolutely must, then you can use the tissue samples I left for you to clone a new Heterodyne."

Igor bowed deeply to Xander before standing back up and looking up into The Grey Knight's red eyes, "I will do as you command, but due have fun storming hell Sir." Igor's bloodthirsty grin split his face.

"HA!" Xander let loose with a laugh that sounded more ominous than happy given the voice modifier in the armor. Xander realized that he could always count on his minions to look forward to invading a hell dimension; they were almost as bad as the Jägers. "Thank you Igor. Go out to the launch site, I'll be with you in a moment." Xander said with a smile.

Igor bowed once again and left the room while Xander looked after the retreating minion.

"Ok Jarvis, I need some music to get me ramped up, I'm sure you have something fitting for the situation." Xander stated seriously, the smile leaving his face as it was t-minus one minute to the hypothetical game time. Cracking his head to the left and then to the right, Xander flexed the muscles in his chest and heard the armor around him creak as he shifted and warmed up by stretching and then flexing his back muscles.

The strains of a electric guitar hit three rock and roll cords in a row, and then repeated. "strum strum Strum… strum strum Strum, Strum strum strum…" By the fifth repeat of guitar cord the drums cut in, and then at the eighteen second mark a raspy higher pitched voice cut in with the lyrics.

"Living easy, loving free, Season ticket on a one-way ride! Asking nothing, Leave me be, Taken everything in my stride. Don't need reason, Don't need rhyme, Ain't nothin' I would rather do.
Going down, By the time, My friends are gonna be there too," The singer's voice carried over the pounding beat, and Xander found himself smiling an evil smile; the music was perfect for the situation.

That's when the chorus of the AC/DC song Highway to Hell kicked in, "I'm on a highway to hell! On the highway to hell, Highway to hell, I'm on the highway to hell…"

Xander waved his arm in front of him and a blue portal flashed to life in front for The Grey Knight to step through.

Xander stepped out of the blue portal in front of his ride to the hell dimension with the chorus of Highway to Hell repeating itself on his internal speaker system. He was out on a grassy expanse on the western boarder of what was formerly known as Kasnia but now was the Empire's west most province. It was a small zone cordoned off by its own individual lightning towers right up against the boarder, and it was currently the only area in The Empire of the Leviathan where outsiders could set foot. Around the outside of the bubble of lightning towers protecting the zone, stood several towering mechs that reached into the sky, and above that wings of Starscreams flew high cover patterns. In reality, there was only one visitor who was allowed in this area, but Xander wasn't focusing on her as the raven haired bombshell in the tight red white and blue outfit stood to the side talking with some scientists. Xander's focus was on the interior of that cordoned area.

Before Xander stood a large thirty foot long by thirty foot wide thick cement slab with a six foot tall silver colored metal stand, the stand was balancing a bright blue glowing transdimensional energy sphere on top of it. A large red circle had been painted on the slab with warnings written to stay outside the line, the circle centered on the sphere. On the other side of the stand but inside the boundary of the circle stood the Dreadknight class exo-armor; a grey colored reinforced metal unthinking chassi of a transformer standing on two legs without a head but with twice the armor and firepower. Twenty foot tall and with two open armored plates in its chest, it would add some extra armor to protect the Grey Knight's body but left the head exposed so that Xander's sensors could continue to function.

Painted on the right and left shoulder of the Dreadknight exoskeleton armor were The Grey Knight's skull and trilobite signal in black paint, and on the chest the armor panels would show another similar symbol when the plates closed together to protect The Grey Knight in his compartment.

As The Grey Knight appeared, techs scrambled to unclip hoses and wires from the exo-armor, and to the side of the concrete slab stood the Empire News Agency reporters and camera men recording the event for posterity if not the actual news; it wouldn't do to tip Circe off that they were hunting for her or sending help to the Amazons.

Xander smiled to himself as he tromped forward towards the Dreadknight class exo-armored suit that would be his chariot to hell.

'A much nicer ride than going to hell in a hand-basket.' One of Xander's inner voices quipped, causing Xander to silently smirk behind his skull helmet.

'Still, not a very becoming end to your secondary Optimus Prime transformer unit, though I guess a rational use of the body given that it was all but crushed after that battle at the Romanian Army base.' The inner voice of Reason interjected.

Xander ignored the inner voices as they began debating whether or not robots had souls and whether or not Xander was desecrating a corpse… yeah, his psyche was pretty twisted like that.

Tromping up to the sides of the twenty foot tall robot, Xander saw that the extra armor plates had been welded over its surface and that the head and most of the chest missing in order to created the perfect cradle for The Grey Knight armor to fit into. On the back of Dreadknight exo-armor was a giant sword, a good twelve feet long and two and a half feet wide with a pommel as big around as Xander's muscular forearm and as long as his leg. The left arm had a pair of belt fed 30mm Gatling cannons attached to its forearm but leaving the hand free, and the right arm had had an upgraded version of the Rocket Red's plasma blaster on it that would work like an upgraded flamethrower. The whole theme and theory of the weapons system was, "if at first you don't succeed, shoot it then shoot it again."

Xander ducked under the right arm of the Dreadknight system and slung the pack on his right shoulder and then lifted the bag up to his head level and onto the hooks and tie-downs that were located there on the Dreadknight's waist. Xander secured the heavy saddlebag and then moved around back of the Dreadknight where he secured his power glaive next to the giant power sword, then moved to the other side of the exoskeleton and secured the second pack.

"I still wish you would let me come with you Grey Knight." A strong feminine voice said from behind Xander.

Xander turned his attention to where the voice came from while focusing on finishing the secure tie down.

There standing with her fists clenched on her hips and a worried scowl on her face was Wonder Woman.

"I'm sorry Princess, but I refuse to let you tag along only to get killed en route." Xander's voice, deeply modified by the Grey Knight armor to sound like Darth Vader, rumbled as he mentally ordered the decrease in volume on the music playing inside his armor.

Xander saw Wonder Woman about to protest again and he held up his metal gauntleted hand and interrupted her before she could speak again.

"We have had this conversation before." Xander growled and the red eyes of his helmet flashed ominously. "It has nothing to do with you being a woman or that I think you are unfit for the job and everything to do with the fact that you would be killed by the transporter. This is not magic such as what Circe used or some godly power such as comes from your Patrons Wonder Woman, this is technology, and a technology that is only safe for me to use. If you are in the area of the field when I trigger it, then you will die, end of story."

Wonder Woman frowned but The Grey Knight continued speaking, repeating the same points that he had made to her before.

"Besides, you have faced and defeated Circe more times than anybody but your mother, who was the one who sent Circe to Tartarus in the first place. I will go to help your sisters and your mother by doing what I do best, killing demons, and you will do what you do best, capture the villain." Xander stated through his voice modifiers as he spun the bolt that finished securing the pack to the side of the Dreadknight.

Xander finished tying down his bag and then tromped in front of the exo-skeleton before floating up off the ground and pivoting in mid air so that his back slid into the chest cavity of the Dreadknight robotic construct.

Wonder Woman looked up at the Grey Knight as he settled himself into the massive armored torso of the exo-skeletal armor, and The Grey Knight looked down at her and he could tell she wasn't happy with the decision.

Wonder Woman crossed her arms across her chest and looked down in thought before looking back up at The Grey Knight.

Diana gave The Grey Knight a grudging nod of acceptance, "Agreed, I don't like it, but you are right. Stay safe Grey Knight, and tell my mother and my sister that I love them. Protect my people Knight." Wonder Woman finished and floated off the ground and backwards towards the safe area outside the circle.

"I will. Bring us home quickly Princess." The Grey Knight called in parting to her, and Wonder Woman nodded in silent acknowledgment.

The whirring of giant bolts and hydraulic pistons closed the chest armor of the Dreadknight system with a resounding 'CLANG' before more locking sounds were heard to issue from the armor. The Grey Knight slotted his gauntlets into the controls for the Dreadknight's arm control sockets, and then clicked his feet into the pedals for his armor clad legs.

"Dreadknight online, I am the instrument of your will." Boomed a deep mechanical voice from speakers on the Dreadknight armor as The Grey Knight's fingers flexed which in turn started flexing and moving the fingers of the massive Dreadknight. Cables, almost living in their snakelike motions, slithered out of the back of Xander's Grey Knight helmet and plugged themselves into sockets on the Dreadknight armor, which caused the barrel of the plasma blaster/flamethrower on the Dreadknight's right arm to flare to life with a brief short flicker of flame as the multiple barrels of the Gatling cannons on Xander's left arm started spinning up to speed.

Taking a step forward, the Dreadknight made a huge "Thud," before it was joined by its second foot moving forward to mirror the sound as Xander moved his walking tank towards the energy sphere.

"WARNING, WARNING, this is not a test! Clear the Launch Zone, Clear the Launch Zone!" Broadcast from loud speakers around the area, and the techs and news reporters moved back to a safe distance before putting on blast goggles to protect their eyes from the brightness of the coming flash of energy.

Wonder Woman gave the Grey Knight a salute by raising her fist to her chest while giving him a little head nod, as one warrior would greet another. Xander in his Grey Knight armor gave her a silent nod in reply before reaching down and picking up the glowing energy sphere with the larger hands of the Dreadknight system, then pulling the sphere close to his chest and clenched it between both larger robotic hands without crushing the sphere.

"Launch countdown commence. T-minus five seconds and counting." The speakers around the cement slab announced, and Wonder Woman affixed her blast goggles so that she could watch the event.

The speakers broadcast the count down, and Xander readied himself for his second dimensional ride ever, "5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Launch!"

As Xander crushed the robotic hands together and shattered the transdimensional energy sphere, he smirked to himself and thought wryly, 'Buffy and Willow would so kick my ass if they could see me now…'

His thought was cut off in a huge flash of blinding blue light that exploded out from the crushed sphere with a giant 'ZAP!'

When the crowd got done blinking their eyes and their vision cleared so they could see again, The Grey Knight and his Dreadknight system were gone.

Hell, Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus, Gimokodan, Kalichi, Hetgwauge, Kuzimu, O le nu'u-o-nonoa, the Infernal pits, the Burning Lake, the Inimitable Darkness, the Seven Levels of Dante's Inferno… these are all names for hell dimensions. The reality is that there were as many heavens and hells as there were Earth's in the multiverse, which meant that ultimately the possible hell dimensions were infinite in their number.

The hell dimension that the Amazons had been cast into was a horrible place, where everything was a carnivore and everything survived off of the blood and agony of its prey. The perfect example of this was shown in the cycle of life and the mixed up food chain that was presently being shown on a bluff a mile away from the rough stone walls that surrounded the former island of Themyscira.

A small flying manta-ray like creature, approximately four feet across and with thousands of little clawed feet dangling from its underbelly, swooped out of the sky in a dive attack on the spiked tentacle plant on the hill.

Weaving expertly between the moving red and black spines that sought to pierce its hide, the flying demon twisted at the last second and latched its spiny underbelly legs onto the tip of a tentacle while using its spike of a tail to pierce and slice through the lower tentacle before darting and swooping away with the severed portion of prey in its demonic legs.

Behind the mantis, the red and black stump of the tentacle plant gushed deep red blood as it writhed in death, the other tentacles smelled the blood and attacked it, piercing and driving the wounded limb down to an open maw in the base of the plant where said maw devoured its own stump of a tentacle.

The mantis swooped up towards the sky, dived and dodged the other flying demons smaller than it as it pulled the bloody still twitching tentacle into a jagged toothed maw that split lengthwise down its body between its many legs.

Flying higher and upwards, the Mantis swooped and screamed its call of victory as it twirled in delight at its bloody food and dived upwards into a cloud; only for bits and pieces of gore and shredded flier to fall back out of the cloud.

High above the clouds floated giant forty foot squid or jellyfish like beasts. The beasts floated on the breeze and stayed in the air via large pustules of buoyant gasses. Armored plates guarded the spaces between the gas filled bladders that kept the great beast afloat, and the creature's very long thin tentacles floated down and behind it held aloft by other balloon like pimples while spikes and mouths dotted the rest of the limbs. These limbs floated through the sky and hid naturally in the grey colored clouds, waiting for unexpected fliers to collide with their waiting tentacles.

Suddenly a giant fifty foot spike darted out upper most layer of clouds inthe sky above the floating armored jellyfish as a humongous beast, a several hundred foot long and wide version of the little mantis demon, pierced the jellyfish and shredded right through it before latching its belly legs into the inner meat of the shredded floating jellyfish and flew back up into the stratosphere.

The wounded floating squid like creature bellowed in its death cry, the thousands of little mouths on its tentacles screaming as it lost its buoyancy and plummeted through the air in strips of meat; the gas bladders exploding and further shredding the great jellyfish demon as the greater pressure at the lower altitudes caused further damage.

Suddenly the sky was full of fluttering flying, screaming, fighting demons of all shapes and sizes; a feeding frenzy in the sky that tore further chunks out of the doomed squid like demon and spread gore and blood over the ground below.

The tentacle plants shot out bladed spikes in an effort to snatch the fliers out of the air, and tiny almost mouse and long thick snake like demons with millions of legs scurried around the ground killing each other as much as snatching up scraps and drinking from puddles of blood.

Herds of what looked like demented hell-cows, with multiple heads and great lizard like maws below horned heads, grazed through the carnage and were indiscriminant in whether they chewed up falling pieces of gore or the smaller demons that scurried about the ground.

There were long lizard type demons like dewbacks from Star Wars, and in the far off distance two tall humanoid demons, grey skinned and standing at ten to fifteen feet tall, used claws and poorly manufactured spears to harvest the abundant meat scurrying about them.

A pack of horned and snarling hell beasts, the size of large tigers but with razor sharp spikes on their backs and with reptilian skin rather than fur, tore over the hill while ignoring the feeding frenzy around them; they preferred live prey of a softer variety and they hunted it as a pack.

Running in front of the pack, leaping over or dodging around the smaller hell beasts while diving under tentacles that sought to gut them, was a small reconnaissance unit of Amazons; two of the Amazons were injured and being carried on the shoulder of two healthy white and gold clothed Amazons. Bringing up the rearguard was a tall Amazon in leather armor with metal discs sewn like scales across it and a flowing loincloth covering between her legs. The lone Amazon rearguard was furiously fighting off the pack in order to provide time for the remainder of her sisters to escape.

Long red hair held back in a ponytail and cascading past her butt, Artemis dove over and twisted through the air to dodge a tentacle plant that instead of skewering her caught one of the leaping hell-pack in the throat.

"Thwip!" In a smooth motion she had pulled an arrow from her quiver and let fly straight into the eye and brain of a second charging eight foot long hell-pack. "/Come Sisters! We are almost there!/" She called out in Ancient Greek to the two pairs of white and gold armored Themyscirian Amazons that dragged the wounded Bana-Mighdall and third Themyscirian Amazon over their shoulders.

The Amazons were fortunate in that the hell-pack, so dubbed by the Amazons based on fact that the great beasts hunted in packs, stopped to devour the wounded beast that Artemis had shot with her arrow.

They sprinted desperately towards the edge of the bluff that led down to the plain where the city lay, using what time the hell-pack gave them to gain as much ground as possible.

Artemis ran over to Donna and Antopia, the uninjured Amazons, and took control of the burden of the injured sisters while Donna and Antopia slid over the red dusty stony ledge of the bluff and down to the level below.

Artemis grunted in effort as she lowered first one, and then the second injured Amazon sister over the ledge, stopped to loose a few more arrows from her longbow to wound the pursuing pack, and then dived over the bluff herself.

Skidding to the bottom in a cloud of red dust, Artemis wiped the sludge that was the combination of sweat and red dust out of her eyes with the back of her arm, leaving a smear that looked like blood on her forearm.

Donna and Antopia continued forward with Artemis playing rear guard to her sisters who were lugging the wounded. In the distance, greater than nine hundred yards away, they could see the guards on the rough hewn wall point in their direction, and the sound of a ram's horn being blown in a call of warning echoed out of the walled city notifying that the scouting unit had been sighted but was going to need cover fire from the walls.

They made it another forty yards before a growl drew Artemis's attention to the right and left of where they had exited off the bluff. There were two separate groups of hell-packs of at least eight great beasts each, leaping down off the upper plateau in an attempt to flank and cut off the fleeing warriors.

Artemis's eyes grew larger, and she sprinted forward to offer a shoulder in between the two wounded sisters to help carry the load faster.

"/Hurry faster sisters! The hell-pack has multiplied and they are trying to flank us./" Artemis grunted out, slinging her bow over her shoulder and urging the group forward at a faster clip.

Still, they only made it another twenty yards before they realized that the hell-pack would be upon them before they reached the wall.

Donna, youngest daughter of Queen Hippolyta and sister of Diana, looked back over the bloody arm of the wounded Amazon that she held up and her eyes grew fearful, "/We'll never make it! We must find a defensible position!/" The Princess yelled out loudly in Greek so that her party could hear her over the loud sound of the baying hell-pack.

"/There! To the left, that little hillock that rises up ten feet above the plain. We must reach that if we don't want to be overrun./" Artemis yelled out.

The Amazons put on a boost of speed, pulling out energy from that deep core that can only be tapped into in true life or death situations.

They reached the hill, dropped the two badly wounded amazons, and the three healthy warriors pulled swords and went back to back with the wounded in their middle. Donna and Antopia pulled round bronze and gold etched shields with scenes of the goddess of the hunt on them, while Artemis pulled a two handed sword from her back, a long double edged blade.

The hell-pack was quickly on them, but confronted with hard armor and sharp blades the beasts howled in fury and surrounded the hill instead of charging their prey. Circling, vicious clawed feet tearing up the red soil beneath their four legs, toothy maws dripping with spit while being licked by long greenish grey tongues, and long reptilian tails lashing behind them, the hell-pack snarled at their cornered prey and edged closer.

"/The odds aren't good./" Donna muttered under her breath in Greek as she continued to keep her head moving, keeping the periphery of her vision free so that she could best pick up any sudden movement that might signal the charge by the hell-pack.

Antopia, the most lighthearted of the group chuckled darkly, "/Well, at least it can't get any worse./"

The frantic blowing of the ram's horn from the wall in three note bursts was repeated, and Antopia's eyes grew large before she looked apologetically at Donna. "/Um, oops./" She told her princess.

Artemis growled under her breath but didn't bother to answer. In the distance a rumbling was herd, a rumbling that turned into a shaking in the earth as over the bluff spilled the feeding frenzy of millions of ground bound demons and fliers of all sizes.

Those demons that had not eaten their fill of the falling tentacle beast from the sky were thundering towards the next closest source of soft flesh, right towards the Amazons and the dripping trail of flesh blood from the wounded warriors.

The hell-pack tensed, instinctively knowing that if they didn't attack now that they risked losing their meat to other demons.

"/You fight well Artemis, it will be an honor to die by your side Shim'Tar of Bana-Mighdall./" Donna said sincerely with a determined look on her face. Antopia nodded in silent agreement as both Themyscirian Amazons pulled their shields tightly against their arms and readying swords as the thundering of millions of feet and the shaking in the ground grew closer and louder.

"/You too Princess and Antopia. Die with honor Amazons./" Artemis said grimly, behind her on the ground the one barely conscious and badly wounded Bana-Mighdall Amazon pulled out her dagger and dragged herself over to cover the unconscious and wounded Themyscirian sister.

With a growl the hell-pack leapt as one, and thousands of pounds of claws, horns and fangs attacked the trapped Amazons.

"ZAPPPPPP!"

A flash of blue light overhead illuminated the leaping hell-beast, distracting the ones that had been heading towards the shield wielding Amazons while giant metal feet crushed the neck and spine of the two leaping hell-pack that had been attacking Artemis.

The crunch of metal and flesh echoed around the hillock, but even the sudden presence of a giant metal monster didn't halt the hell-pack in their attack.

However the "Fwick… FWOOOOOOOSH!" of a giant flamethrower igniting and sending forth a forty foot wall of flames, yeah that one did phase the beasts a bit…

Xander entered the hell-dimension in a flash of light as he realized he was falling.

'Just once I'd like to end up nicely planted on the ground when I transport into a new dimension.' Xander groused to himself as he looked down.

'Don't complain, it beats appearing planted IN the ground. Better over it than under it.' Xander's inner voice of logic added his two cents, and Xander silently agreed with that logic.

As he looked below at the ten foot gap between the Dreadknight's feet and the ground, the world seemed to slow down as he realized he was about to fall on top of two demons who seemed to be jumping in slow motion towards a group of surrounded Amazons.

In a second, Xander sent out the command to his AI system to activate weapons, only to get no response.

'Jarvis! Jarvis are you there!' Xander frantically communed with his armor, only to realize that the artificial intelligence of the Grey Knight armor hadn't survived the trip.

Still communing at the speed of thought with his computer system, via the nano-clanks in his body, Xander quickly order, 'Manual override code! Alpha Twinkie Twinkie God I Hope This Works.'

The hum of the nano-clanks in Xander's brain clicking into high gear was almost audible as an electric shiver went down Xander's spine.

No longer was the now nonexistent AI a buffer between Xander and the armor, instead the armor's sensors had been rerouted to Xander's brain. Its sight was his sight, its hearing was his hearing, its smell was his smell, and god did he wish he couldn't smell the stink of hell that permeated the air.

Xander braced for impact as he positioned his feet to intercept and crush two of the jumping beasts out of the air.

The metal feet of the Dreadknight snapped horns, crushed bones, and pulverized flesh and organs as his colossal weight smashed the two leaping hell-pack out of the air.

With the world in slow motion Xander kept his head moving as the sensor system in his armor and the Dreadknight fed Xander target information.

A brief thought and a swing of his arm brought forth the purifying flame of The Dreadknight, and fire as white as the Amazon's clothing carved a defensive wall that incinerated seven of the hell beasts and left a burning veil of fire behind.

Seven of the hell-pack disappeared in the conflagration of Xander's fury, and the leftover wall of flame gave the amazons a defensive bastion through which attack couldn't come; even if it felt like they were getting sunburned being that close to the fire.

A brief optical zoom saw the gape mouthed shock flash quickly over the face of the red-headed beauty with the pretty eyes and sleek figure, long muscular legs clearly on display under almost a leotard like leather and bronze armor; she was braced for combat with only a loincloth covering from her waist to between her legs at knee level.

The little voice of Xander's libido chimed in excitedly, 'Hey, not bad. You should try to…'

Xander cut it off with a, 'Not now libido, trying to fight and don't need the distraction. So shut the hell up.'

The little voice mumbled in the back of Xander's head, 'Fine, jeese dude, way too serious, need to get laid more often and lay off the Sparkbucks.' Before it quickly shut up and allowed Xander to fully concentrate.

Across the brawl from Xander, shields were thrust forward, stunning and briefly knocking back the snapping jaws of the attacking hell-pack while swords stabbed out from under the rims of the shield to gut and wound two other beasts.

The Amazons were good, but still would have been no match for the original eighteen hell-pack, and they would have been completely overrun by the oncoming mob of blood hungry demons if they had been alone to face the coming tide.

Enter modern killing technology ala Dreadknight, stage left.

The barrels of Xander's Gatling cannons let out a "BRRRRRRRR!" sound as they sped up to speed. Xander carved his arm through the air with fine precision, stitching a pattern around Donna and Antopia to cut four of the demons in half and ending the melee battle between the Amazons and the hell-pack.

The remaining five hell-pack saw the brutal deaths of their kin and turned to flee across the plain away from the larger grey colored predator that had bested them in a matter of seconds. Yet their escape would not be successful

"DIE DEMONS!" Xander spat in fury, and it bellowed out of the speakers on his armor as his flamethrower flared again, melting demonic flesh and glassing the soil beneath to leave none of the original hunters alive.

The Amazons still seemed to be moving in slow motion as they turned in awe to look up at the metal figure that had saved them from what they thought was certain death. The metal being, bedecked with glaring skulls and flickering fire stared down at them with crimson back lit skull, and the three standing Amazons simultaneously thought that they may have fallen out of the frying pan only to land smack dab in the middle of the fire; the badly wounded but still conscious Amazon decided at that point to use her wounds as an excuse to faint at the fear she felt at the sight of the new monstrosity confronting them.

For Xander on the other hand, data and images were coming at him faster than the normal human mind could track.

Seeing the city in the distance on one side and the oncoming wall of demonic flesh spilling over the bluff, Xander made a snap decision and reached down with the large hand of his Dreadknight exoskeleton while addressing the Amazons through his external speakers.

"Give me your hand if you want to live." Xander stated in English.

Artemis almost stumbled back at the shock of being addressed in a language of Man's world. It was only logical that faced with such a monstrous visage and language of her enemy that instead of accepting she instead pulled her weapon up in front of her to protect her and her sisters.

"WHAT?" Artemis blurted out in a mixture of shock and a little bit of fear, though she would never acknowledged the first.

Xander looked down at her, then briefly spared a glance towards the bellowing mass of evil that was thundering towards them. Looking hurriedly back at the Amazon he repeated through his speaker system, "I said give me your hand if you want to live! I'll carry you all to the city gates; it's the only way you'll make it." He said frantically in the deep booming voice of his armor system.

Artemis turned to look at Donna and the other injured Amazons, Antopia now had a bloody gash running down from her shoulder to her elbow, and a jagged piece of bone was sticking out the side. Donna was helping to put pressure on the wound and had torn off a piece of her shirt to use as a tourniquet. Donna spared a look at Artemis at the silent question in the Shim'Tar's eyes, and then looked at the oncoming horde before addressing the large robotic figure with the gleaming skull looking out of its chest.

"We don't have a choice, we'll come." Donna answered, and Artemis nodded in agreement.

Xander reached down and gently picked up Donna and put her on one shoulder before doing the same with Artemis and Antopia; he was thankful that there wasn't a head on top of the Dreadknight exoskeleton, and the girls had plenty of room to sit on top and even some hydraulic mounts to cling to.

Sweeping up the two now fully unconscious Amazons and cradling them like babies in his huge arms, Xander turned and took off towards the city gates in the distance.

Xander's long loping steps, though not super speed like his copy of The Flash's ability, were dramatically faster than what the oncoming horde could match and he quickly outpaced the leading edge of the demonic mob. A brief thought about trying to fly there faster went through his head, but he didn't think it would be safe with the Amazons barely clinging to the frame of his exo-armor.

As he ran, he spoke to the Amazons, "I am the Grey Knight, sent by the Leviathan to help and I come baring word from Princess Diana to her mother. When we reach the gate you go in and I'll hold them off." He ordered.

The three Amazons riding on top of his armor spared a look for each other before Artemis responded, "There is no way that you can hold off that many demons, and if we open the gates they will overrun the city." She yelled over the rushing wind, the pounding of his metal feet on the hard ground and the roaring of the oncoming monsters of hell.

Xander just gritted his teeth and then growled out his reply, "Don't argue with me girl, if you don't get through that gate your wounded will definitely die."

Reaching the gate, Xander saw faces looking down from the high stone wall and archers were running along its length as pots of boiling steaming substances were rolled forward. Looking at the gate, his optical sensors noted a small guard gate, that was a small door enough for a woman to slid through sideways. From Xander's knowledge from the Heterodyne-verse, where castles and fortresses were much more common, he knew that the small door was referred too as a Wicket.

Donna started to argue back on behalf of her fellow Amazon, but her voice was drowned out by the loud bellow that issued from the speakers on the Grey Knight's armor. "OPEN THE WICKET, I'VE GOT WOUNDED AMAZONS HERE!" His yell nearly deafened the Amazons riding on his armor and shook the Amazons guarding the walls.

Xander bent the Dreadknight armor over at the waist while dropping down to one knee and quickly and gently laid the two injured Amazons down by the wicket as the small door in the gate was unbarred and opened. Several Amazons bearing spears and swords exited the door and quickly formed a perimeter between Xander and the gate while four more Amazons exited with stretchers to tend to the wounded Amazons . Xander finished handing down Donna, Antopia and Artemis, and as he did so he noted that the new Amazonian guards alternated keeping their weapons pointed at him as much as they did the oncoming horde.

Xander gritted his teeth behind his helmet at the threatening and guarded looks the Amazons were giving him, but then again he couldn't fault them as he would probably have reacted the same way if the situations were reversed.

'There will be time to deal with that later.' Xander thought to himself as the whir of servos was heard as he raised back up to his full height and turned back to face the oncoming horde.

"Hurry inside the gates, I will hold them off." Xander said through his external speakers, his voice the low booming of his Darth Vader voice as the sensors of his armor took in the specifics of rapidly approaching demons.

Ignoring everything but the approaching enemies, Xander let loose a blast of fire from his arm mounted flame thrower, laying down a diagonal line of fire extending out and away to the right of him and extending thirty yards away from himself. Then he twisted at the waist and took a step forward with his right leg before raising his arm directing the flamethrower in the opposite direction and letting loose again.

Stepping back, Xander looked over the still burning six foot tall walls of flame that would funnel any demon charging the gate right at him. Xander planted his right foot in the dusty dirt so that his torso was facing the oncoming horde and he mentally commanded, 'Release and lock down pitons.'

Large spikes connected by long metal cables exploded out of the front and back of the shoulders of Xander's Dreadknight armor, digging deep into the rocky soil and then locking in place as the spikes spread themselves to anchor in place.

Xander had drawn his line in the sand, and if the demons wanted to get to the Amazons, they would have to go through him.

Xander smiled an evil smile as a gleam came to his eyes, and he raised both of the Dreadknight's arms towards the onrushing horde.

"NONE SHALL PASS! BWA HA HA HA HA!" Xander laughed insanely as the twin 30mm Gatling cannons on his arm opened fire.

To the outside world, the incredibly loud sound of the "BRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE…!" was heard as Xander spun the barrels up to full speed, pumping supersonic penetrator rounds comparable to those fired on an A-10 Thunderbolt Warthog at 4,200 rounds a minute, per gun. The power of the guns rocked the mighty armor of the Dreadknight backwards as Xander's armor was pushed back into the ground and the cables of the pitons strained against the backwards force of the recoil.

To Xander, the "BRRRRRREEEEEEEEEE" sound of the spinning and firing cannon barrels was more of an independent "Bang, rotate, Bang, rotate, Bang…" as he tracked the guns in seemingly slow motion to put the cannon rounds to the best effect.

There fifteen hell-cows in a row disappeared in a mist of black blood and gore. The next round obliterated several hell-pack and some long lizard like creatures that looked like overly large alligators, followed quickly by the third round coring from front to back an armored twenty foot long millipede that was as tall as a man. The Gatling cannons alternated shots, and in that less than a heart beat between shots Xander had already tracked the arm mounted weapons towards the next target in the line.

The Amazons at the gate stared between the legs of twenty foot tall Dreadknight and paled at the sight, as the Amazons on top of the wall grew green in the gills due to their better position and view from the heights.

It was as if the leading portions of the stampeding mob exploded into a mist of demonic ichors and splattered tissue; pulped as the supersonic rounds punctured through the first level of flesh and then created a vacuum that tried to pull the creature inside out through the small entrance hole.

The forward fifteen to thirty feet of the demonic hordes simply ceased to exist as Xander laughed his head off while pumping them full of spent uranium rounds. Rounds that didn't dig into the dirt continued to penetrate through the masses or ricochet off the ground to outright destroy or mutilated the ranks of nightmarish creatures behind.

Behind Xander, one Amazon standing before the gate dropped her spear due to her hands growing limp at the spectacle in front of them, and on the walls above several of the toughened female warriors lost their lunch at the sight. The Amazons had heard of the horrible wars and tools of destruction that existed in Man's World, but never before had it been brought home to such an extent exactly how lethal and destructive those finely tuned destructive tools could be.

Then again, the Amazons were in the presence of a true artist, a connoisseur of destruction, for nobody but a Heterodyne would be so twisted as to even design doomsday weapons in his sleep, and nowhere else was there a Heterodyne with Xander's super speed and precision.

Like Rembrandt and his paintbrush, or Michelangelo and marble, Xander's work with his Gatling cannon was the epitome of modern art, each round perfectly placed for the most destruction, and the splatter and fly of blood could have been immortalized in some modern art museum in New York and fit in with the normal forms of "art."

Xander placed each round a set distance to the right of the last shot until he got to the end of the line and then went back the other way. 8,400 rounds were fired in the first minute, each one spaced no less than one foot to the right from the last round and aimed at just the right spot with all of the skill and accuracy of a man merged with machine.

The constant sound of the "BRRREEEEEEE!" was counterpointed to Xander's evil laughter and jokes about killing demons. "BWA HA HA HA HA! There goes Buffy's record, and the last fifty something slayers before her. WA HA HA HA HA HA!" Xander laughed out loud, his voice booming over his speakers and making several Amazons slowly edge towards the Wicket gate.

Xander stitched his guns across the length of the oncoming demons and then back again in the other direction, weaving his arm from side to side as easily as if he was spraying water back and forth from a hose rather than sending hot metal down range with devastating effect.

But still the masses rushed on, further spurred by the increasing scent of blood in the air, the back ranks pushed forward biting and snapping at the other demons around them as they sought a chunk of meat large enough to eat. Among the larger demons in the mob the shorter demons, the snake and rodent like demons that scurried along the ground, darted forward underneath Xander's attack like a plague of so many cockroaches or rats.

Ever forward the demon horde pressed towards Xander and the walls of Themyscira, and still Xander continued to fire and destroy the larger demons in the mob while millions of small fliers or rodents were missed by the independent rounds.

Behind Xander several Amazons darted out of the open Wicket gate and grabbed the stunned Amazons, herding the guards back into the city before slamming and barring the small door against the oncoming mob.

With only a hundred yards left, and still close to a half a million demons charging straight towards Xander, his guns slowed their spin for a moment as his smile grew and he tipped his head to the side in thought, 'Hmm, perfect opportunity to try out the new flechette rounds.'

'Oh oh, next time we make the flechette rounds out of exploding darts. Bwa ha ha ha ha. Science demands more destruction!' The voice of Xander's inner Heterodyne quipped in his mind, and Xander smirked evilly in reply.

A loud "Cha-chunk" sound issued from the Gatling cannons as the ammo switched over to the flechette rounds; rounds filled with little supersonic penetrator darts.

Then the barrels started spinning up to full speed again, and suddenly the air was full the sound of millions of angry bees as the flechette rounds shot out of the barrels only to explode ten yards down range, launching fifty penetrator darts per round.

The Amazons watched aghast as the "BUZZZZZZ'ing" sound was almost painful to the ears and the flock of flying demons and little swarming creatures were torn apart by the terribly humming flesh shredders that launched from Xander's gun. Like piranhas to a cow that wanders into their river, or like some flesh eating plague that leaves only bone, the flechette rounds punched through the air to shred flesh from ligament and bone.

'Hmm, definitely explosive tips next time, we are leaving behind way too much intact bone on some of those armored demons.' The inner voice of Xander's Heterodyne self clinically stated as Xander watched the rain of bloody flying demons drop out of the sky only to be continually shredded on the ground due to the massive spread of the penetrative darts shot-gunning out of Xander's Gatling cannons.

Up and down, from right to left, Xander stitched a zigzag pattern though the still onrushing demons so that he could both swat them out of the air and hinder the mass that was slinking towards him over the ground.

After another minute of constant firing Xander's optical sensors and inner nano-clank systems calculating that the odds were still somewhere around fifty to one-hundred thousand demons left versus the one Xander.

'At those odds, they don't have a chance, bwa ha ha ha ha!' Xander chuckled internally as he gave a herd of hell-cows a spray with two rounds, shredding the twenty something multi-headed demons.

Turning to aim the next grapeshot like flechette round at a pair of large lizard like demons, demons that reminded Xander of the Star War's Dewbacks that the storm troopers rode on across the Dune Sea of Tatooine, Xander was surprised to see an arrow fly through the air and burry itself in the eye of one of the large lizards.

Till now, the Amazons on the walls had been strangely inactive and quiet. Well, they were quiet if you ignored the occasional sound of one of the warrior women throwing up at the sight of Xander's carnage.

Above Xander on the walls, Queen Hippolyta arrived having been awakened earlier than her allotted guard shift by the loud noise of battle and the screams of the dying demons.

Hippolyta frowned after taking one look at the still onrushing demons. Dressed in golden Greek armor with a long red dyed horse's main plume on her helmet and armed with sword and shield, she looked around at the Amazons who were standing stunned or who were even being sick at the sight of so much carnage. Not since the second week of their time in hell had they faced such a horde and many Amazons, both Bana-Mighdall and Themyscirian, had been sorely wounded or died those first days in hell.

When they had arrived on the plains of this hell no walls existed between the former island home of the Amazons and the throngs of slobbering demons. In an instant, at the call of victory by Circe and transport to this dimension, every Amazon knew that they needed to work together in order to survive. Bana-Mighdall and Themyscirian found themselves back to back and shoulder to shoulder, former enemies were now shield sisters in a battle to the death against an enemy that threatened to annihilate them all.

For two weeks the Amazonians had fought against a horde of hundreds of thousands of demons, both day and night for two weeks without pause until the demon spawn were finally pushed back at a terrible cost. But here and now were the bodies of a similar host splattered across the path to the city, and below her she watched some large robotic being laugh in a very male voice as he destroyed hundreds of thousands of the demonic beasts by himself, and in the space of only minutes.

Hippolyta felt her own gorge rise in her throat as she looked down upon the bloodshed and massacre of the demons. Still, she was a queen, and a queen does not quail in the face of the enemy and for that matter neither should any Amazon warrior.

Around Hippolyta stood stunned Amazons, amazed at the destructive power of the being below them, and happy that he at least seemed to be on their side for the time being. Still, an Amazon warrior should not be stunned by the sight of blood and guts, no matter how much was puddle and pooled before their eyes.

Hippolyta turned and yelled at the Amazons on the wall as she grabbed a bow and arrow out of the hands of a numbly staring archer. "/AMAZONS! For Shame! We are under attack and you stand there staring like a novice not sure which end of the sword to use. Archers! Open fire on the demons!/"

With that, Hippolyta let loose with the arrow from her borrowed longbow; the arrow streaking the eighty yards to bury itself into the eye of one of the large lizard like demons and drop it to the ground where it was subsequently turned into ground meat by another wave of buzzing flechette rounds.

The Amazon archers on the walls gritted their teeth in shame or growled at themselves for loosing themselves at the sight. Hundreds of bows rose as arrows were pulled from quivers and notched before the strings of the bows were drawn back to the ear of the Amazons', and then the flight of whistling arrows darkened the sky over Xander to pierce into the ranks of the oncoming demons.

Hippolyta noted that the large robotic warrior was working to stem the forward movement of the demonic mob, so yelled out a secondary order in Greek, "/Amazons, strike the rear ranks. Put maximum distance in your shot!/"

The archers around her followed the command, raising their bows to aim higher and let loose with scores of arrows that worried the ranks of the demons some one hundred and eighty to two hundred yards away.

Shafts of wood fell like rain among the back ranks halting the forward pressure as demons stopped to snap at painful wounds that struck their flanks, limbs and faces. Here and there a demon would drop from a mortal wound but the biggest significance of the Amazon's attack was that the wounded demons soon were snapping in pain at their neighbors, and soon the demon ranks were a roiling brawl of pissed off beasts fighting each other.

Finally The Grey Knight's attacks were successful in stopping the advance with the assistance of the Amazon's sewing confusion in the mid to back ranks of the horde.

The buzzing sound slowed, and there was a loud "CLUNK" sound before the sound of winches recoiling was heard to issue from the large grey colored and skull bedecked robot.

Xander's optical sensors informed him that the demons were not pressing forward into his killing zone for the flechette rounds.

Making a split second decision, Xander stopped firing his Gatling cannons and retracted the pitons that had anchored him to the ground. With a loud "CLUNK" the mechanical stabilizer system snapped back together and began to whirr as it retracted into the Dreadknight's shoulder mounts.

With a smile on his lips, Xander said to himself inside his armor, "When you absolutely have to get at the demon's and they won't come to you, do what Buffy does." Xander reached behind his back and grasped the pommel of his huge sword with his left hand and then pulled it forward while activating the giant melee weapon's transporter cutting field.

'This is going to be fun.' The primal voice almost purred in a deep rumble inside Xander's mind.

"CHARGE!" Xander yelled, and darted forward with his sword point leading while his Dreadknight's ground eating steps shook the earth like miniature earth quakes.

Several of the wounded limping demons in the front looked at the charging behemoth and growled out a challenge towards the Dreadknight, and Xander answered.

"DIEEEEEEEE!" Xander screamed as he took two steps more and then leaped before he met the front ranks of demons that had turned towards him. Up into the air he exploded before coming down spinning like a top, halving the demons closest to him and creating a twenty foot span of death around him with his twelve foot blade.

Smiling evilly to himself, as he continued the spin, Xander pulled the blade closer to his center of gravit as it left a blood trail that swirled into the air. Using his centrifugal momentum Xander raised the barrel of his flamethrower and unleashed hell right into the middle of the demonic swarm.

"BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA! BURN BABY BURN, Disco inferno! BWA Ha ha ha ha ha!" Xander laughed manically, his voice eerily deep and booming coming from his speakers as he painted a circle around him with liquid fury.

Xander marched forward through the flames, sword whistling through the air to decapitate or bisect demons while the upgraded version of the flamethrower on the Dreadknight's armor incinerated demons all around him.

A long armored millipede like demon, covered in what looked like large chitinous plates, rose out of the flames before Xander hissing in pain as the flames lapped at its armored shell.

Xander met the beast face first with the edge of his blade, grinning madly as his blade cut the beast in half and allowed the purifying flames to eat through the soft inner tissues of the demon.

"Run Demons, run from the wrath of The Grey Knight! Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha!" Xander laughed gleefully as he cut a burning streak through the demons and left a path of death and ashes behind him.

From the walls, Queen Hippolyta yelled out, "/Cease fire!/" as the still living demons were now out of range of the Amazons' arrows. She and her sister warriors watched as the self proclaimed "Grey Knight" bellowed his way into the mass of demons. From a professionals viewpoint the sword work wasn't the finest she had ever seen, but what the metal being lacked in finesse he made up for it in shear brutality.

Watching from the walls the Amazons had a front row seat as the remains of the demon swarm were destroyed in a holocaust of fire and fury. The liquid fire that issued out of the Grey Knight's weapon were white hot, and the robot left a burning swath of flame. The demons around the Grey Knight burst into flame as the fat in the demons' bodies ignited, causing the flames to leap hire until only the shoulders and upper body of the Grey Knight was seen as he walked through the roaring fire.

From their high vantage point on the walls of Themyscira they saw the demons halt, quivered, and then those evil beasts that remained whole enough to do so turned and fled the interminable march of The Grey Knight and his terrible weapons.

Somewhere in the demons must have been the instinct to run from fire, for even if they hadn't been born with such an instinct, they were now instilled with it by The Grey Knight's attack.

Xander stopped his attack as the few remaining demons fled from him. Turning and looking around, Xander saw that he was basically standing on a giant funeral pyre as bodies and bones were carbonized and then reduced to ash around him.

'That'll do Xander, That'll do. Now back to the bevy of beauties on the wall.' The little voice of Xander's libido said inside Xander's mind.

'One track mind much?' Xander quipped back, but there was no anger in his statement, only humor as he smirked and sheathed his sword with a flick that cleansed it of the demonic blood and ichor before it was put away.

'And damn proud of it, you'll get that harem if it's the last thing I do.' Xander's libido replied in Xander's head with a smirk on his face.

Xander only chuckled to himself and turned towards Themyscira and tromped towards the tall walls, it was time to properly meet the Amazons.

Crunching sculls and tromping through the fire like some hell god or greater demon, Xander saw the faces of the Amazon's on the wall grow pensive and several fingered bows and pointed them at him as if he was a new enemy they had to face.

'Perhaps wearing the armor with skulls and with a helmet with glowing blood red eyes wasn't the best choice for a first meeting between me and Queen Hippolyta, but then again I don't exactly have anywhere to change into a tuxedo.' Xander thought to himself with a wry smile across his face. He wasn't too worried about the weapons that were being pointed at him, but still this wasn't the warm welcome he was hoping to get.

'Damn, I forgot to bring the fruit basket, cookies, and house warming gift. Do you think they'll accept dead demons as a, " hi I'm your new neighbor gift?"' Xander's inner voice of irony chimed in, making Xander smirk a bit bigger for a moment.

Stomping back to the gate, Xander looked up at the archers pointing arrows at him and his optic sensors focused in on the Amazon with the most decorative armor.

Zooming in, Xander examined the beautiful women above him, and turned to address the Amazon with the plume on her gold helmet; recognizing Hippolyta from his accidental peeping on her in the bathes.

"Greetings Queen Hippolyta," Xander's voice, modified to sound like Darth Vader boomed out in English as he knew she spoke that language. The Grey Knight armor's speakers and the speakers on the larger Dreadknight system that he was riding in clearly getting his message across.

"In accordance with our mutual protection treaty, The Leviathan has sent me to help you and your kin here in this hell dimension while your daughter and The Leviathan's forces hunt for Circe. I have come to give you aid." Xander spoke in the guise of the Grey Knight and not as he was want to normally speak.

There was no immediate answer as the Amazons looked at him like he was crazy, and Hippolyta stared at him blank faced for a moment before slowly answering, "We welcome aid if what you say is true, better late than never. However where have you been for the last year that we have struggled in this hell, and how do we know that you are not some greater demon sent to destroy us as you did those lesser beasts?" The Queen asked snappily, her eyes fiery as she looked down at him.

The Queen's voice and demeanor reminded Xander of whenever Cordelia would get imperious and demanding, and it grated on his nerves. Xander gritted his teeth; this didn't seem to be going so well.

"My apologies for coming late, but only a week had passed since you disappeared from your home dimension, time must flow differently in this dimension. As for your concerns as to my being a demon, I can assure that I am human under this armor." Xander wasn't interested in getting undressed from his armor in the middle of an open expanse of hell, so it was understandable that he didn't shuck his armor right then and there to prove that he was a bona fide human being.

Queen Hippolyta squinted down at The Grey Knight and responded between her teeth, "Spoken like a true deceiver, for I see nothing about your figure that would beget me to believe that you were human, nor have you given any sort of proof that you come from where you claim."

Xander grumbled under his breath but didn't broadcast on his speakers, "God damn it, not another Queen C, or I guess Queen H in this case." Xander mumbled curse words under his breath as he rested the arms of the Dreadknight system into a parked position and then closed his eyes for a moment as he drove his mind into the machine around him via his nano-clanks.

Cords and hoses disconnected from inside the Dreadknight's crew compartment with a hiss and the cords slithered back into the base of the skull helmet of the Grey Knight armor.

Twisting his wrists and pulling on the release handles, the armored chest piece of the Dreadknight exoskeleton split down the center chest armor seam, bisecting the black painted skull with the trilobite in the middle that had been painted on the Dreadknight.

Xander opened his eyes and glared up at Queen Hippolyta as he floated out of the cradle in the Dreadknight system and then landed lightly on his feet. As he reached the ground, Xander reached up to his helmet and gave it a twist and mentally commanded the seals and locks to release, and they did with a series of clicks and pneumatic hisses.

The helmet of the grey knight 'clicked' and came off easily under Xander's grasp, revealing his handsome good looks and chiseled jaw to the view of the Amazon's on the wall. The putrid stench of death mixed with the hot sulphurous air of the hell dimension hit Xander like a wave as he took off his helmet, but he remained stoic in the face of the Amazons staring down at him.

"There, happy?" Xander quipped with a glare back up at Queen Hippolyta and the Amazons that were staring stunned down at him.

"You're a man!" Was spat out from next to Queen Hippolyta. Everybody turned to look at who had shouted it out, and Xander saw that it was the beautiful redhead that he had saved earlier, now standing next to a younger Amazon who looked a lot like Queen Hippolyta.

Xander smirked up at the redhead, "Was that a statement or a question? I'm not about to divest myself of the rest of my armor to prove my masculinity." Xander quipped.

The redhead blushed, and then looked angry that she had been teased in front of the other Amazons, and by a man at that, "We don't need a MAN to help us. We don't need your protection!" She spat out at him, anger in her eyes. The way she said the word "Man" made it sound like she was disgusted to even have the word pass her lips.

"Reeeaaally?" Xander asked, tapping his chin in mock thought as he looked up at her, "I seem to remember you needing my help a little while ago, or is your memory so short that you don't remember me saving your life just over there?" Xander finished by pointing with a thumb over his shoulder at the hillock that was covered in the remains of dead demons, the same hillock where the unit of Amazons had made a last stand.

Xander was growing beyond frustrated. Here he had come all the way to the hell dimension, fought off a slavering horde of countless demons and this was the greeting that he got?

His attention was drawn back to the Amazon whose life he had saved. "I will never owe a life debt to a mere Man!" She spat defiantly, using the word "man" like a curse word.

"Silence!" Hippolyta cut off the redhead's tirade with a slicing gesture with her hand. The Bana-Mighdall redhead glared defiantly at the Queen of the Themyscirian Amazons, but didn't continue her speech towards Xander.

"Who are you man child, and why did my daughter not come with you to protect her people?" Hippolyta demanded of Xander.

Xander's face visibly reddened, and he bit his tongue so as not to answer back with the first fifteen or so retorts that shot through his mind at being insulted by these women. These Amazons were an infuriating mix of Cordelia Chase and her haughtiness crossed with Buffy and her mentality that since she was the slayer and Xander the mere human, they were better than he was.

Xander ground his teeth together and answered darkly, "I see that the fabled honor of the Amazons is lacking in truth, as for who I am, my name is Alexander, or you may call me The Grey Knight, but ally or not you will not call me Man child again."

Xander could see the Queen darken at his rebuke, but he continued, raising his voice over anything she would have liked to add. The Amazons on the walls were clearly not pleased by his response as they glared at him also.

"As for your daughter, she would not have survived the means by which I was able to transport here to this hell dimension. Diana told me to send her love to her mother as her message when we parted. Now Queen Hippolyta, will you please allow me entrance into your city so that I can deliver the supplies that I brought with me?" Xander finished asking, trying to be polite and choking back on how he really wanted to respond. He wasn't use to the outright insults and not being able to react in kind, but then again he wasn't The Leviathan here and it would kind of be counterproductive to kick the Amazon's combined asses, especially given the fact that he was there to help protect them.

Queen Hippolyta's eyes flashed angrily at Xander's rebuke of her honor, no matter how true of a fact that he had just saved the lives of several Amazons and held off an overwhelming tide of attacking Demons.

"No," Hippolyta stated, and she saw Alexander bristle at her answer. "You may leave what supplies you brought us at the front gate, but no man may set foot on the Island of Themyscira." She commanded.

Xander's jaw dropped, and then he closed his mouth with a click before waving around him angrily, "Does this look like a bloody Island to you Queen Hippolyta? We're on the freaking plains of hell, and you would deny access to an ally who traveled multiple dimensions just to help you, all because he is of the male gender?"

"I have ruled, and so shall it be." Hippolyta answered haughtily looking down at him firm jawed, she had sworn she would never trust another man again after what Hercules had done to her so long ago.

Xander just stared up at her and the other Amazons.

Finally Xander answered, "Fine, if you will be petty, then so shall I." He spat out before putting his helmet back on and starting to float back into the cradle of the Dreadknight armor. His voice continued, now coming out in the booming voice of Darth Vader, a deep voice that added further flavor to his displeasure with the Amazon's statement.

"If you will not allow me to enter, then so be it. None of my assistance will enter your city without my being given permission to enter as well." Xander announced as the chest plates of the Dreadknight system clanked shut and sealed him inside its protective embrace.

"For now, you will have to be content with me protecting you from the exterior of your wall." Xander announced via his speakers as he turned around, Dreadknight armor and supply bags included and started to walk back towards a small hillock that was a good fifty yards from the walls of Themyscira and thankfully devoid of dead demons.

"How will you protect a whole city from outside?" The redhead yelled after him, a bit mockingly.

Xander turned his Dreadknight armor to face the redhead who stood next to the Queen, and his eyes flashed red.

Many of the Amazons took a hesitant step back or gripped their weapons tighter as the armored man's red eyes flashed angrily from inside the skull like helmet.

The Grey Knights voice ground out in reply, "Why the easy way of course. Do try not to step over the red line, I'd hate for any of you to get injured or die."

With that, the Dreadknight armor turned and commenced walking towards the hillock.

In the city of the Amazons, resting in its place in hell, the Amazons wondered what The Grey Knight meant by "The easy way" and whether his statement regarding the red line and getting hurt was a statement… or a threat.

AN: Freaking long chapter, and now its Xander versus the powers of hell… they don't have a chance. Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! Ok, let me know what you think. Cheers!