Two men in military fatigues were walking thru a large underground facility.
"We were told this town was overrun with HSTs." One of them was complaining to the other. "We've been here for four months and found only twelve. In the whole city! I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like overrun to me." He pushed the little HST in cuffs ahead of him.
"I don't know what an HST is supposed to be, but if you're wondering why there are so few demons in this town, it's because the Slayers' group has destroyed most of them. What few are left are in hiding."
"Slayers' group?" One of the military guys asked.
"The group that patrols this town and keeps the people safe from the ones that feed on people. Which hey, doesn't include me."
"Since when is another group assigned here? I thought we were the only group."
"They've been here for a few years now." The little demon told them.
"A few years? And why weren't we briefed on this? We should report it to Dr. Walsh. If another group is operating here, we need to know about it."
"Agreed." They deposited the little HST into a holding cell and went to report to their commanding officer.
"No other group is assigned here, Captain Finn. If there is some group operating here without authorization, then they could find themselves in alot trouble. If you run across them, let me know."
"Yes, ma'am."
When Alexander woke up without his voice, he thought he'd gotten sick. When he realized that Corda was without her voice too, they tried to heal each other, but failed. What was going on? They headed for Giles condo. They knew the others would be joining them there.
None of them had their voices and none of them could be healed. Using notepads and pens they managed to communicate.
Buffy held up her pad. "I had a Slayer dream. A little girl holding a box. She said the gentleman have been summoned and that they need seven. Seven what?" Just as Wesley arrived.
"Hearts." Faith wrote on her pad. "I had a Slayer dream too. I saw weird guys with big, scary grins on their faces, cutting someone's heart out."
Giles went to the books and after checking several pulled out one. Wesley was frowning over the fact that no one was paying any attention to him, but then, what was new about that?
Giles wrote in his pad. "The gentleman come to a town, they steal everyone's voices, then they kill seven people and cut out their hearts. What they do with the hearts is unknown."
"Some kind of field damping the voice frequencies?" Alexander speculated on his pad. "How do we stop them?"
"A scream from a real human can kill them." Giles wrote.
"They're sensitive to those frequencies. Turned on them, they can kill them?" Corda wrote on her pad.
"We need to deploy throughout the city. Corda, Jonno and I in one group, Buffy and Faith together. Oz analyzing. If anyone finds a solution, don't hesitate, use it." Alexander ordered.
"Now just a minute!" Wesley wrote. "This is the Slayers' responsibility. The rest of you go home!"
Of course they ignored him. He'd been in town for about eight months at this point, but no one had yet accepted an order from him, to his eternal frustration.
Alexander's group came upon some guys in old fashioned suits with big scary grins on their faces and some weird little guys in undone straight jackets with them. They fired on them with their pulse pistols, even though they would have preferred not to use them in the day time. Dark was still a good hour away when they encountered them. Their weapons worked and destroyed the ones they encountered. Buffy and Faith saw some coming out of the clock tower and snuck in. Unfortunately they weren't the only ones as the guy Buffy had been getting to know was also there. He shot one of the gentleman with a big blaster, that knocked it back, but didn't do much else. Faith pulled out her pulse pistol and shot it, blowing a hole clean thru, much to the guy's shock. Just then a loud scream like sound could be heard ringing thru the city and everyone abruptly had their voices back.
"Whoever you are, put down your weapons, you're in alot of trouble!" The guy in fatigues ordered.
"Riley? What are you doing? And we're doing our jobs."
Faith was on her communicator, the latest piece of Alteran tech that Jonno and Oz had managed to reverse engineer and create more of.
"I don't know who you are." Faith said. "But I'm pretty damn sure, you have no right to be here or give us orders. I'm not putting down my weapon."
Alexander and his group entered. "What's going on here?" He asked.
"What's going on is that you kids are in alot of trouble."
"How do you figure that? We were protecting ourselves, which is a legal right in this country." Johnathan informed him.
"Who are you?" Alexander asked.
"Captain Riley Finn, U. S. Army."
"Then you're the one with no authority here, Captain. Unless the law has been changed. From what I understand, military of any sort, have no jurisdiction off their bases. And the nearest base is a National Guard Base." Alexander told him.
"We have special orders."
"Not legal ones and military can't arrest civilians anyway." Johnathan added.
"Which means you're either a liar or a moron." Faith said. "And we outnumber you and as you saw for yourself, my weapon works alot better then yours does."
"I need to talk to my superior officer."
"Do that and when you have legitimate orders, then we can talk." Alexander said, as a frustrated Riley Finn left.