Order of Business

"The slayer power of Hang-Over Protection is the most powerful power of all," Faith announced while smiling at the stricken expressions on her lunch-mate's faces. The trio of friends were sitting under the scorching midday sun at a small Cuban cafeteria on South Beach. Old Sam in his loud Hawaiian shirt looked just a little fuzzy around the edges, earning some respect from the high-metabolism slayer for his incredible skill of downing enormous amounts of alcohol while keeping up with her on the dance floor all night and then still being able to operate the next morning, even if morning was actually closer to noon. Michael clearly didn't have that skill-set as he was still passed out at home, tucked into bed with lipstick drawings from her and Fi all over his face. The Mad Irish Bomber was here, but clearly not at full speed yet as she huddled over a cup of coffee, her thick black old-man sunglasses hiding her eyes. The full plate of fried baloney and eggs sat untouched in front of her.

"Oh hey," Sam said as he stood up carefully and reached into his pocket. "Somehow during the party I managed to get your phone." He handed the vibrating cell phone to the startled slayer, who snatched it out of his hand and answered it immediately.

"What the hell, Faith?!" Courtney's frazzled voice sounded out. "I've been calling you for two hours now, Giles is about to add you to the Big Board."

The Big Board was the War Room's threat level and tactical response computer, only needed to coordinate during emergencies... "Slow down, Cort, just lay out the SitRep for me," Faith ordered as she leaned back in her chair and cleared her mind.

"Alright..." The sound of rustling papers from Cort's Mission Load-Out desk could be heard. "Okay, standard two member in-world patrol, waterfront sector, due in at 6:00 AM local time fails to report. At fifteen minutes past, the SIC sends text message alert to all local patrol elements. At thirty minutes past: all local assets sent alert message, Willow notified, threat level raised,and all patrol elements alter patterns to cover missing route. At forty-five minutes past: Xander is informed at home and makes the call, threat level maxed, emergency teams called in, team sent off-world to brief Buffy, Giles alerted and immediately initiates the Big Board, additional search teams deployed. At forty-eight minutes past, Shannon's search team finds evidence of a conflict on Howell street: damaged vehicles, lots of blood and no sign of any bodies, the SIC dispatches Forensics to investigate. At one hour past time of arrival, 7:00 AM local time: Willow brings her division online, Xander arrives at TacComm, Alert sent to all assets worldwide, Giles informs necessary local and Federal authorities, and Dawn activates the Family-Services office and calls in all personnel." Faith's mind scoured the details as Cort caught her breath and started again, "At T-minus 1:09, local authorities report evidence of large disturbance in the Harshford Suburbs area north-east of the city. Within three minutes, the nearest search team, Kelly Johnson's, finds organized and hostile demon presence in wooded area around the Scathamore Cave complex, which was a tourist attraction until it was closed down years ago. Kelly finds evidence linking this disturbance to our missing slayers. At T-minus 1:15, Giles dispatches Strike-Forces Alpha and Delta along with Willow's team to investigate the caves. At T-minus 1:22 Willow opens negotiations with what turns out to be armored militant Galiskiri demons serving one High-King Thok-tan. At T-minus 1:27, Buffy arrives on scene and assumes SIC status. Two minutes later, negotiations fail and assault of complex begins. No updates for thirty minutes and then Willow Jedi-minded Xander and he immediately deployed Strike-Forces Baker and Omega to scene. They left here about five minutes ago and I finally got a break long enough to try you again." She caught her breath and Faith could hear in the background a War Room announcement that she had been located.

"Alright, who was the original SIC?" she asked, leaning forward in her chair and ignoring the concerned looks from her friends.

"Camilla Sylvester was on-duty."

"Good, she wouldn't have missed anything...Who are our missing girls?" she asked, realizing that she still didn't know.

"Rami Carlyle and...Jenn." Cort's words slowed as she realized the significance of what she was saying.

"Okay...Okay that's good, they can handle themselves, they're not gonna break over the little things," Faith replied, her mind filled with possibilities and consequences as she tried not to focus too closely on the fact that one of her best friends, who was practically a protege, and her partner were in enemy hands or worse. "Get today's National Defense Protocol password from Giles and call General McTierny at Homestead. I want a ride on a fast mover, like a fighter jet or something. NOT on another slow-ass cargo tanker. After you do that, check in with Andrew just in case his Geek Squad can get me up there faster." She hung up and shrugged at their widened eyes. "What? I know people. Sam, I need a rocket shot over to Homestead Air Force Base." She was on her way, Rami and...Jenn had better be alive, or a hell of a lot of other motherfuckers were about to die...

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"Okay-next, everyone who wants to volunteer to sit with the families or cook dinners or whatever, sign up at the Family Services office," Dawn said as she looked out over the sea of exhausted but determined faces crammed into the SDW auditorium. "Mama Carlyle is at her home with one of my teams and the Hawsers will be arriving from Dallas within the hour," Noticing Buffy walking into the back-stage area, sliding a clean coat over her bloody and battered tactical gear, she quickly wrapped it up. "Everyone! Remember the new rule that came down this morning. Willow's division needs a small vial of blood from all active operatives; let's have total compliance within the next day or so, and any non-operatives that wish to register their blood with Willow for tracking spells are more than welcome to do so. Here's Buffy." She stepped aside, quickly giving her tired sister a hug and went over to sit with Xander in the front row.

Buffy took a deep breath and looked out at everyone. There were slayers from across the country here now, with more coming in every hour. The room was packed with witches and wizards, friendly demons and shapeshifters, normal humans and almost everyone in her entire family. She nodded to Giles as he gave her his encouragement. She put her notes from Tyrese on the podium and cleared her throat. "Alright...first I want to acknowledge the aid from the police and the FBI. Deputy Chief Miller and Special Agents Johnson and..Johnson are here as liaisons and have engaged all of the assets at their fingertips to help us. Thank you, gentlemen," she said as she nodded to the three men sitting by Willow. "Now, this is where we're at. Thirty six hours ago we lost two of our family and we are no closer to finding them now than we were yesterday. This is not acceptable. Follow your instincts, your guesses, whatever. We need people to step up and become superstars and we need our superstars to come through. We will figure out why the locator spells suck and we wont be in that position again in the future."

"So far, what we know is that the cave complex has a permanent portal in it to another set of caves near the Cleveland Hellmouth and of course with the Hellmouth involved there is a whole new set of problems. The items found at the caves are confirmed to be Rami's and Jenn's but the current theory we're working on is that it was all a diversion, and if it was, it was a good one. We are hoping that they never went to Cleveland and there is some evidence to support that from the motel out on Green Valley highway. As far as Forensics, with help from the Seattle FBI's Crime Lab can tell, the slayers were there and they were alive."

She paused to take a long drink of water and decided to not tell everyone about the bedsheets. If the Lab could match the DNA then they'd all find out when she brought some bloody body parts back with her. "We're not ignoring Cleveland though. I just got back and Faith is still over there. As usual, the official slayer is not in our command structure and she sometimes forgets to report her locations. So if you see her out there, report it to Giles so he can update the Big Board."

"Look, FBI statistics say that from this point on, every hour that we don't find our girls makes it more and more likely that we never will...and that is unacceptable!" she said with emotion breaking through her words and bringing her to the verge of tears. "I think of what it would be like to be at the mercy of captors strong enough and powerful enough to be able to hold slayers, to be able to take the warriors they are and make them victims, and the only thing I can come up with is that the knowledge that my family will stop at nothing, will never stop, will never give up trying to find me that I'd find comfort knowing that it was only a matter of time...We will find them, and my apologies to the authorities but when we do, each and every one of the bastards that took them will pay..."

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Faith sat on the Galiskiri throne holding the high king's severed head in her hand. Before the fight ended, he had claimed to not know anything about the missing girls, but he refused to stop fighting and like Michael would say-If you are greatly outnumbered and evasion isn't an option the rule is that lethal force is the only option. She wouldn't have even found the king and his Honor Guard if she hadn't stayed and waited after Buffy and the strike teams left. She looked out over the carnage in the room and threw Thok-tan's head back closer to his body. The little black stone castle was in it's own small bucket dimension with an entrance to the cave system in Cleveland.

Hearing the staccato of pounding feet she stood and walked to the outer balcony. It looked like a hundred or so demon soldiers were crossing the long narrow foot bridge at a run, coming to this very castle. Jumping down to the ground, she jogged to the end of the bridge and called out, "I'll let you all go if you turn around and leave now!" The answering growls from the closing force left no doubt as to their intentions. "Yea, didn't really think so..." Drawing the Scythe from the back of her sticky red leather coat, she launched herself into the first rank of arriving soldiers, knocking two of them over the side of the bridge to the incredible depths below. She slashed one open across the stomach and twisted under another sword while stabbing a third in the face with the Scythe. Spinning into a roundhouse kick, she sent more to their doom while those who didn't fall met a ferocious and painful death. The orgy of blood and violence raged with the war cries of the demons only drowned out by the roars of the slayer.

When the last demon finally fell, clutching at the hole in his chest, Faith held the last battle stance and watched as the haze of blood in the air slowly drifted down to the ground, frosting everything, including herself, in a crimson shade of painted destruction. After a moment appreciating the beauty of the scene, she cleaned the Scythe and put it back in the coat's sheath and started the journey back to Seattle.

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Blake stood by the telephone pole and cried. She just couldn't make herself go across the street to Mama's house. She couldn't go and see that woman sad. Her own mother was a drunk and probably did a happy dance when she ran away because of her gross step father.

No one from that moment to when Dawn found her living in a bus depot had ever been nice to her without expecting something in return, even the people at SDW, they were nice enough but they wanted her to work for them. Rami was gone and there was no way she could go over there empty handed. She could still remember standing in the aisle at the supermarket down the street from the company building trying to decipher the mysteries of hundreds of different feminine hygiene products for the first time in her life. She could remember Mama coming over with her shopping cart and taking the box out of her hands and replacing it with a different one. Mama never even asked if she needed help or expected her to do anything for it, she just took the scared little girl under her wing and at that moment a love fiercer than anything Blake had ever thought possible in her life came into being. From that moment, the greatest moment in her life, she had a mother who loved her and treated her completely like a sister to Mama's real daughter...and now that daughter, Blake's sister, was missing.

She knew Mama would feel better if Blake would go and get smothered in one of her hugs but she couldn't do it. She wasn't strong enough, she was too weak to see her mom cry. She turned and ran, she ran as fast and as hard as the slayer-witch could, and when she came to a fence, she didn't slow down, she drove right into it, leaping at the last moment and vaulted over to keep running on the other side. Finally after god-only-knows how long, she collapsed and sobbed out everything that she had left. She sat up and propped her back against a tree and composed herself, knowing that Mama would chide her for wiping her nose on her sleeve. Finding inspiration, she quickly took out her little pocket knife, made a small cut on the palm of her left hand, rubbed the bleeding wound between both hands and then pressed them to the ground. "I call on...King of the North, I call on your...I need your power, I need help, I'll give anything, I'll do anything you want...just please let me find her for Mama, just let her come home safe. Take my life instead!" she screamed as she cried again...

The snow crested between the span of horns on the great helmet gently fell as the massive figure leaned forward in his frost covered stone throne. Cromm watched the little human cry and beg him to take her life in trade and his hand went down to the right of his throne, digging through the snow to a pile of Important Documents. Finding a small gray leather book he held it up, cleared the cover with his fur gauntleted hand and read the cover, "Regulations on Material Plane Interventions as dictated by his Lordship Metranon". Of all the people who still pleaded to him for power or guidance, the sexy little blond girl was his favorite...