After a chorus of “What?”, “Dear Lord”, and “Bloody Hell, this is rich!” subsided, chaos reigned inside the Magic Box. Everyone was shouting at once, mostly about it not being April, which meant it wasn’t the time for an Apocalypse. Giles was accusing the two Gods of being sent by Wolfram & Hart to trick them somehow. Riley wanted to get the military involved, if they were discussing a war. Joyce lamented her daughter being put on the front line again, in all the dimensions this time. Dawn wanted to squeal that she was finally involved in a discussion about the end of the world – worlds actually – but kept quiet for fear of being sent to bed. Xander wanted to know why they hadn’t called for Batman or any number of other comic book characters to save them. Willow wanted to know what magic she had to use to get in touch with other dimensions. Anya wanted to know why she didn’t know about any of this despite her vast experience as a Vengeance Demon. Throughout it all Tara, Spike, and the two Gods remained quiet.
Finally, Zamolxis stood up and bellowed a command that everyone be quiet. Surprisingly, for anyone familiar with them, the Scoobies complied.
“Now that some order has been restored, I shall try and answer all your questions. First of all, I never said I was a representative of the Powers that Be. I specifically said associate and that is exactly what I am right now. Since the Powers that Be and Wolfram & Hart have joined forces for this one time in all the dimensions and all the timeframes in existence – truly a thing of enormous importance given the fact that it was never before even attempted – I am currently speaking for both groups. As well as Bendis here,” he added once the beautiful being beside him cleared her throat.
“We cannot send for reinforcements from other dimensions because doing so would only weaken and alter all the involved parties too much. The consequences could be catastrophic. Instead of just one dimension in which the war erupts, we could have dozens, if not hundreds. As for why demons no longer know of their expat status, that is because most of them have been born here. Those that are thrown in from time to time tend to consider themselves as wronged parties and attempt to open doorways in order to get home. Acathla was one such instance, the same as Glorificus, or The Beast as you know her, is trying now.”
“You know about that strong ho-bag?” The Slayer was back in calculating mode.
“Buffy, language!” Joyce would not having her daughters using those kinds of words, whatever the situation may be. At Buffy’s sheepish look she nodded.
“Yes, we are aware of her attempt and we will aid you in ridding yourselves of her. I shall explain more after I make a few more things clear, if that’s OK with you. And as for asking your daughter to do this for us, we are sorry, but there is no other way. If we get involved more than we are, there could be a backlash that would lead to exactly what we are trying to prevent.” Bendis tried to smooth things between everyone again.
“Indeed. Glorificus has lost her right to an appeal in this dimension and her punishment has been agreed upon. Make no mistake. The rules for being thrown in a prison-planet are quite different from world to world. For example, littering might be considered a capital offence in one world, whereas helping one’s neighbor might get you exiled on another.”
At their looks of bewilderment, he added with a snicker “Rules are different throughout your world as well – considering just the status thieves have, for example. Punishment varies from death to the proverbial slap on the wrist. This is why there are demons that are evil by your standards and others that are harmless and even integral members of the community: ‘they cook your meals, they haul your trash, they connect your calls, they drive your ambulances. They guard you while you sleep’.” He ended his impersonation of Tyler Durden using the exact same tone of voice as the one used in what was one of Zamolxis’ favourite movies. Recognition of the quote was evident in the core group of Scoobies, as well as Spike and Dawn, although the rest remained ignorant.
“Glory’s offences on her world are great, by your standards. Mutilation, slavery, murder, and so on, but those are the norm in her world. Her real crime is having tried to overtake the entire planet, thereby weakening the ruling class. Her punishment was to be banished to this world, never to return home again. Her attempt to get back is in direct violation of her conditions for remaining in existence and after her appeal was heard, she has been found guilty and shall be disposed of. But more on that later.” Zamolxis held the room’s attention once again, the amount of information he was pouring out and the monumental changes this required in the way each viewed the world around them - demons in particular - was staggering.
“This is ridiculous! Any good demon is a dead one, we all know that! So who cares why they were sent here? We just kill them all and that’s the end of it! I say we call Graham, he told me there still is a group under the Army’s supervision that is combating demons worldwide. We get them on the horn, we let the Government know about this and it’ll all get taken care of without the need for your kind of help. All I’ve heard so far are attempts to make bloodthirsty demons sound like upstanding citizens.” Riley was getting all excited about being in the military again; fighting the good fight with people he knew he could rely upon. How Maggie would have liked to be involved in this war against all demons!
“Right, so’s they can make another Franken-bloody-demon. Didn’t you White Hats learn a bloody thing from the last time? But maybe that’s what you want, innit, Cardboard?” Spike snorted at the thought of the people responsible for putting the chip in his head being of any use in the coming conflict. “They’d probably chip us all and put us in a loony bin before doin’ a thing to help.”
“I should have staked you as soon as I discovered you were Hostile-17. Why don’t you let me do it, Buffy? Don’t you see he’s trying to make us doubt who the good guys are? Or are you in thrall with him, too?” This earned him glares from the Scoobies as well as the Summers women. Spike just couldn’t believe his luck to be privy to this show – the Slayer upset with Cardboard because something he’d said about him. ‘Priceless is what this is! Better than those bleedin’ commercials on TV.’
“The human military cannot get involved because little minds tend to do stupid things. And minds don’t come any smaller than the US Army.” Bendis was not moved by the ex-soldier’s tirade.
“How dare you say that about the Army? We are fully capable of dealing with any threat to this country, be it local or otherwise. And anyway why should we believe you? Your story sounds more like a fairytale!” Riley was fuming at this point and just couldn’t keep up any appearance to the contrary.
At this point Bendis had had enough of his meddling. He was a member of the group that played with her rules – something only she was allowed to do – he was dating her Slayer, someone so far up above him he would have needed a ladder just to reach her ankle and was treating her like a misbehaving child. He was spewing forth his half-knowledge and half-truths about what he had the audacity to call sub-terrestrials and in so doing infected those around him with his narrow-mindedness as well. He had listened to everything that had been said and hadn’t heard a word. And since the previous night when she and Zamolxis had ironed out some of the details that would govern this outing of theirs, at least one thing was clear: the bastard had to go!
“Please! The US military has nothing that could take on the combined forces of any Hell. The Initiative was just something that continued the experiments of Nazi Germany and Napoleon before them. They were just a group of misdirected xenophobes that had no real understanding of the forces they were dealing with. Trying to modify the behavior of vampires to turn them into assassins? Experimenting on their own soldiers by injecting them with demon hormones? Attempting to create a human-demon-machine hybrid that defied all laws of decency and nature? And for what, the betterment of mankind or whatever they wanted to call it? Yes, the Powers That Be are pledged to helping humankind survive the demon onslaught, but chaining those demons, experimenting on them, trying to see what makes them tick in order to modify your own soldiers is not the way! It was tried once – by us – and even we failed. Whatever gave you the idea to try to do better than us?”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm not sure I've said this before, but any and all quotes, names and references to books, shows and movies outside the Buffyverse are property of their respective owners.
In other news, enjoy!
In other news, enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
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