The next day Xander, Cordelia and Faith, with Elder Xander only a call away and accompanied by Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson, flew to Colorado Springs, the President having agreed to their request. Teal'c and Major Carter having opted to remain in Sunnydale and help Buffy with patrolling while Xander and Faith were away.

Major Carter also wanted to have a word with Willow Rosenberg.

Once the group arrived they were dropped off at the infirmary while O'Neill and Daniel met with General Hammond in the briefing room. "The President reminded me that the protection of a town is a civilian matter." Hammond told them. "And from what he's discovered since being briefed on the project you were unwittingly 'volunteered' for," Hammond could do sarcasm well. "the officials in Sunnydale weren't protecting the citizens, they were allowing them to die, killed by these aliens from other dimensions. Something the NID was aware of, but did nothing about themselves. In fact, it seems they took advantage of the situation a few times. The President is - not happy."

"I'm not happy." O'Neill answered. "But these kids are doing something about it and they're doing a damn good job from what I could see."

"The reports the President got from the NID agree." Hammond nodded. "They're also the ones that put a stop to the trap, as your report called it. The Mayor, the now dead Mayor, transformed at the graduation ceremony. The NID managed to get ahold of a recording, the School Board, unaware of the Mayor's plans, had hired a video recording company. He overnighted it to me." He pressed the play button on a remote and the three men watched silently as the Mayor transformed into a giant snake. They watched Xander lead his fellow classmates in battle and Buffy risk her life to lure it into the High School where it was blown up. "The kids had a matter of days to prepare and they succeeded, with an astonishingly low casualty count."

"I want to know who trained Xander." O'Neill pointed at the camera. "He knew what he was doing leading them, he had them organized into squads, armed and they managed to hold it together until near the end. He coached them on controlling emotions in battle, he had to have. But he's far beyond this level now and I mean far beyond. I saw him using moves taught to Special Forces, advanced training and do them like he'd been doing them for years.

"Teal'c said Buffy was fighting like that too, like she'd been a warrior for years. But he also said she wasn't trained by a master, she's fast, but she's sloppy. But she also improvises and she was watching him too and started picking up some of his techniques, just by watching him. He was very impressed." Daniel told them. "These kids, they figured out there was a problem in their town when the adults were either complicit, blind or concentrating on surviving themselves and instead of following one of the paths the adults chose, they chose to fight back and part of that is basically arranging their own training and constantly improving it."

"Faith told me one of those vampire parasites succeeded in getting that dimensional tear the kids call the Hellmouth open about two and half years ago." O'Neill told Hammond. "Cordelia, Xander, Buffy, Willow, the little hacker that annoyed Carter and two adults stopped him and got it closed again. She told us what's on the other side is dinosaur sized creatures, creatures like what the Mayor transformed into."

"Buffy explained to me that he started out human." Daniel told them. "About a century ago he made a deal with some of those aliens, he wanted to be one of them. He built Sunnydale for them to have a constant influx of unsuspecting humans for them to eat and spent the next century slowly doing what was necessary to physically transform into one of them. Some of these aliens are capable of forcing a transformation in seconds, so I guess there are different factors to consider for those that want to do it."

"Nutbags." O'Neill muttered. "But Sunnydale's population is decreasing and the kids think it's because the Mayor did something to keep most of the population blind to what was happening. Whatever it was is wearing off and people are leaving. You can't ignore the oddities in Sunnydale forever."

"The two girls, your report indicated they're both in danger." Hammond motioned to O'Neill. "Do you have any details on those situations?"

"Ascended Ancients aren't the only groups of Ascended out there." O'Neill answered. "And one of those call themselves the Powers and the kids say they see humans kinda like toys to play with. Buffy, Faith and Willow were some of their favorite toys and the reason Faith nearly died. The second Xander Harris arrived in this reality as the result of a botched assassination attempt on the local Xander Harris, now Giles. Apparently he's really good at seeing through their games and throwing a wrench in them. Cordelia's in danger because a former member of their group wants to use her as the access point into our dimension from the one the other members of the group imprisoned her in. Somehow she thinks Cordelia can set her free."

"They appealed for help from another group of Ascended on Faith's behalf, which is how she became Jack's daughter according to tbe kids, but someone else out there is also aware of what's happening with the kids and arranged a separate measure of protection for Cordelia, they have no idea who the unknown benefactor is or if Cordelia's unexpected pregnancy was part of the plan, but it's endangering both her life and the baby's." Daniel finished summing the situation up. "And that's why they've agreed to let us try to help them."