"Damn it," Buffy swore, as the sky darkened. "Willow once told me Sunnydale is Murphy's favorite vacation spot. If I ever find out he's actually real, I'll torture him myself!"

"I'll help you." Faith agreed. "Hey, Queenie," she yelled to Cordelia. "Get Red and Wolfboy and get these people out of here. B," she turned to Buffy. "X's car is in the parking lot, right?"

"Yeah, and he keeps his own guns in the trunk. You and me go for the guns?" She kicked the wooden platform the Mayor and Principal Snyder were standing on and pulled two pieces away from it, handing one to Faith. "And we deal with the vamps so the Council team and Xander and Wesley can deal with the very big snake now towering over us."

"That's what I'm thinking. Along with wasn't he supposed to be like sixty feet? Because he doesn't look quite that big." As they charged the vampires and Cordelia, Willow and Oz herded screaming people toward the hopeful safety of the High School.

The Council team, along with Xander and Wesley came out of the cloaking spells and Amy and the Council's Magic user began chanting a containment spell, Amy throwing all the power Hecate had loaned her into it as the combined firepower of 10 P90 submachine guns began tearing through the somewhat less than sixty foot snakelike demon.

Xander, praying this Hail Mary worked, reached for the Mayor's mind with his own. He could vaguely hear Snyder screaming at the transformed Mayor, but he was concentrating on two things, holding the gun steady and grabbing the mind of the creature in front of him. He succeeded just as Amy and the Council Magic user did too and the creature froze, mind and body.

He ejected a magazine and popped a second in place and kept firing as others did too, praying no one got hit by a stray bullet, because there were a hell of a lot of them flying around here.

Buffy and Faith fought their way through the vampires, staking as many as they could, two lone Slayers armed only with a makeshift stake each against more than forty vampires, very much afraid they weren't going to make it to Xander's car and his shotguns, as a vampire's punch sent her stumbling and Faith kicked it back, before Buffy succeeded in staking it. They were both bleeding and she knew it was just going to get worse, but giving in meant dying and that wasn't an option as far as she was concerned.

Cordelia headed for the Library and the book cage herself, pulling out a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. Willow and Oz could shoot guns, but had never learned to use swords and damnit, there was only one crossbow. Face set, Cordelia hurried back outside as Oz and Willow pushed people into a classroom and told them to stay away from the windows. Once outside, she began firing at the vampires, picking them off, especially any near Faith and Buffy.

It was a scene out of Hell, screaming people, vampires, who for some reason weren't feeding on any of the people, but were fighting with Buffy and Faith. Amy with a trickle of blood coming from her nose as she and the Council's Magic user held the containment circle and the very loud sounds of ten submachine guns on full auto shredding the snake. She could see that actual chunks were missing from its body and if it wasn't for the containment circle, the platform and Snyder, who was still screaming at the demon snake, would have been covered in blood.

Buffy and Faith managed to reach the parking lot, each of them bleeding from a number of wounds. Faith had a dislocated shoulder and Buffy was barely standing and was struggling to focus her eyes, a blow to the head had left her with a potential skull fracture. But she managed to get the trunk of Xander's car open and pulled out a shotgun and Faith struggled to guard her back, with a dislocated shoulder she wasn't going to be able to handle one of the shotguns anyway, but Xander's 45 was also in there, so as Buffy finished loading her shotgun and swung around and began firing at near point blank range at the vampires around them, Faith dropped her stake and reached into the trunk herself. She managed to load a clip into the handgun and fired at a vamp that got too close. At that range, it only took a couple of shots to destroy enough of the head to reduce the body to dust, she kept firing until the clip was empty and saw Buffy doing the same, before slamming the gun across one vamp's face when she ran out of bullets.

'How many have we dusted?' She wondered. 'There has to be an end to them soon, right?'

Amy felt her power draining from her as she struggled to help hold the containment circle, they couldn't let it fail, the demon snake could escape and kill people before they managed to kill it.

'Goddess Hecate, hear your servant

Grant me strength, grant me power!'

She prayed Hecate would understand the need and help them stop this thing and to her relief, she felt her strength returning as more power was granted her by her goddess and she threw it into holding the containment circle.

Xander realized the moment it died when he could no longer sense the mind he'd been holding and signaled the team leader, who signaled the rest to stop firing. Amy and the Council's Magic user slowly released the containment circle and the bloody mass of body flopped over and landed hard on the ground.

"There's still vampires!" The team leader called to his men. "Help the Slayers!"

It wasn't over yet, just the biggest part of the battle had concluded satisfactorily.