Order of Business

"What was her answer, Captain?" Cicero looked up from the collection report that he was going over with Advocate Trask when the Captain of the Forum Guard entered the office.

"She refuses, Master," Maruk replied with a slow deliberate growl.

"What did she say?"

"Her actual words were Go to hell, Goatfucker." Maruk felt sick to his stomach, it was so rare to find true strength and honor among these halls and now when he did, he would have to execute her.

"I thought you said that she was wavering..crying and letting you touch her..is how I believe you described it?" The praetor had already made plans for the raffle to decide her new master. The three that had lost servants would have gotten multiple tickets while others could purchase chances for the dark girl.

"I believe now that she was saying goodbye to her loved ones. Making peace with herself. When I asked her later, she was back to her angry self, even more-so fortified to refuse to bend." He wondered just how many failures a lifetime of honorable service had purchased for him with the council.

"Damn it, man! My raffle idea was genius!" Cicero slapped his desk, and noticing Trask's startled expression then calmed down quickly to regain the even decorum that he always strove for and demanded in his servants. "That is very unfortunate, Captain," he continued smoothly. "Have you tried anything else, or are we at the end?" .

"Padma and the Traveler both failed to roll her."

"Captain, the appropriate way to have said that sentence would have been, The Master of Beasts and the Traveler both did not, for whatever reason roll her mind. You should be very careful who you insult now, Captain. With your performance of late, you will need all of the good will that you can find on the council and more, if you wish to survive as the Captain of the Forum Guard. You are dismissed, al Bandi."

Maruk stood there as the praetor, his master for a dozen centuries went back to the paperwork and ignored his presence. When the little worm Trask sneered at him, a decision he had been afraid to make decided itself within his mind. "And what of the black slayer, my master?"

"Kill her and tell Valkyrie that we let her go." The praetor did not even look up from the report to condemn the teenager to death.

Maruk was not sure why he expected anything different...

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314 slayers, 78 witches and wizards, 31 humans and demons and other friends including the FBI's Hostage-Rescue Team, and 7 werelions all waited in a crowd, bored out of their minds. For five hours now Blake had been trying to recreate the spell that she sent Faith to who-knows-where with.

Buffy had run the whole gamut of emotions, she started out excited, then became anxious as the spells started to fail, then apprehensive followed by annoyed as Willow was having about the same amount of luck. Now she was resigned to impatience, she had been standing there for hours...well sitting there in her fiancee's lap as they reclined in the grass around the opening in the woods that Blake swore had at one time held a door made out of flame.
Buffy had thought that the burning of the demons was going to be too much for the FBI guys to handle, but they were all there, happily flirting with the slayers that were fawning all over them and their weapons, probably more their weapons than the agents themselves.

"The demon-kabob thing was kinda rough," Haven grumbled as he was polishing his pair of Desert Eagle .50 cals. Buffy had gotten demon slime all over the golden pair when she had grabbed them to show her friends after he had arrived.

"Look, Garfield, I said I was sorry for smudging your little pistols. I promise to do a demon blood check before touching anything of yours ever again." She gave him a playful smile, this was an old game between them and they both enjoyed playing their parts.

"I got something you can tou..OUCH!" All conversation stopped and everyone was looking at them as he rubbed his pinched nipple. He ducked his head at the flash of Willow's angry green eyes.

"Sorry, just training the house cat," Buffy said aloud as she waved everyone off and then continued, ignoring the big teeth that he was trying to threaten her with. "Stop your whining, it didn't hurt that bad. The demons were hostile, we didn't just go grab some from a bar or anything." At least we better not have, she thought as she looked at Kennedy, Shannon, and Kelly. The slayers that had brought in the Volunteers.
Kennedy wouldn't be going with them, if the door ever opened, because Giles didn't want to risk the Official Slayer status changing hands too many times. But she was doing her part and it gave her a chance to follow Willow around like a puppy dog. They must be fighting again, Buffy thought as she looked at her very over-worked best friend. "Wil so gets a vacation when this is over. Three weeks in Fiji or Aruba. Are there any Arubian vampires?"

"Aruban, and I have no idea," he said, still massaging the tortured nipple. "I'd send her to that ice hotel in Sweden, she looks like she'd burn to a crisp in the tropical sun."

"Ah, you're so smart. You know, I've got a great feeling about this. Faith is there, where ever there is and she will not let those kids down, no way. Whoever the big bads are, they're getting a Slayer education right about now."

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"Do you stand by your statement that our guests couldn't be newborns?" Belle Morte asked Praetor Cicero with sarcasm as the the praetor and all of the council members gathered around Morte D'Amour's laptop like school children around a classmate's pet frog.
They watched the security feeds of the eastern entrance tunnel as the slayer's Dark Knight, as the council had labeled her, mowed through the resistance like water cut through snow.

"Yes, well, Captain al Bandi is leading the main force there now so we shall see exactly the capabilities of the Dark Knight. We must also consider sealing the eastern doorway, if this slayer could find it then others might as well."

"We should kill the wolf in our home before we worry about the one that might come in tomorrow," Padma said as he studied the dark haired female that reminded him somewhat of his late son Fernando's mother, minus all of those lethal abilities of course.

"I think a well placed burst from a Uzi would solve this problem," Morte D'Amour said aloud as he thought of the many brilliant examples of modern technology that he was becoming accustomed to as he recruited more modern servants.

"And an Uzi is what again?" the Traveler asked using the new German horse's mouth that his human servant Balthazar had personally selected for it's blond hair, blue eyes and Olympian swimmer's physique.

"It is a small arms weapon, a useless one, I think," The Dragon interrupted as she licked the tears from her slave Jessica's face as the girl was locked in her Mistress's embrace. "No, this is a real warrior, such toys do not kill real warriors. She will fall, but it will take a face to face contest with one who is even more a warrior than she."

"I have every confidence that when Maruk and our other Master-level servants engage, they will be able to overwhelm the lone warrior," Cicero said with no little amount of hesitance. This, Maruk, is your chance at redemption, he thought as he studied her ballet of death.

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I should be leading the guard to the eastern tunnel, Maruk thought as he once again contemplated canceling this plan before it went too far. The Dark Knight's attack offered too great an opportunity though. He strode down the hall, ignoring the looks of confusion from the slaves as they wondered why he was going this direction when he seen Marc Antony about to disappear into the praetor's residence. "Antony!" he called out and jogged the rest of the way to the startled former emperor.

"Shouldn't you be elsewhere?" Marcus asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The Council feels that if the black girl can be taken, then we could use the two of them to ensure the cooperation of the Slayer Knight."

"Really, judging by Valkyrie's strength of mind, I find it unlikely that we could hold them in their idol's presence," he said, annoyed that his control of the blond girl wasn't absolute.

"Well, we are to try to get the girl to agree to be rolled and they want Valkyrie to make an attempt to convince her," he asked with an expectant look and a slight smile. "Unless you wish to go report to the Dragon that her plan is a waste of time?"

"I think not, follow me." Antony led him through the underground estate to a separate suite at the rear of the complex. Maruk could see the Valkyrie through a window, in her corset reclining in front of a television set. Taking a quick glance for other guards, he reached out and using his vampiric speed and strength, bashed Marcus's head into the stone wall. The unconscious Roman who probably now had a fractured skull slid down to the ground.
He entered the room and his heart started beating, as it did whenever he thought of his warrior princess, as he took in all of her graceful curves, accented by the corset, and her flowing golden hair.

"What took you..," her words stalled when she noticed that it wasn't her new lover returning to her.

"We do not have a lot of time, do you want to see Rami?" he asked as he sat on the red Roman couch by her side.

"Of course!" she said as she struggled to sit up in the confining garment. She really did wish that Marc would let her wear something else, no matter how hoochie this made her boobs look.

"Then trust me." He placed his hands on her face and poured all of his power through his eyes. He would roll her completely, she would be devoted to him and when they got away, with or without the black one, he would make her his full human servant. If one could be rolled then they could be marked he thought, already excited by the thought of her serving him, even if they had to hide for the rest of their lives.
He could feel the link that Cicero had in her mind and he battled it, tried to squash it under his immediate force...he could feel it weaken, his master knew now that the game was on and was pushing back, but he was too far away to withstand the relentless assault upon the tenuous link. The praetor's connection to her snapped and Maruk almost roared in triumph as he ignored Cicero's words whispering into his own mind. That momentary pause was enough though and his heart stopped dead as he realized that his control wasn't forming in her mind. He saw her take a deep breath and slowly raise her piercing blue eyes, filled with nothing close to the devotion that he wanted. The slayer within her was coming, almost casually to the surface and he found himself staring face to face with that alien presence. His angel's eyes held only rage, dark cold and lethal rage.
Captain of the Forum Guard Maruk al Bandi ibn Farrouk knew true fear in the split second before she exploded into him, driving him to the floor and then sitting on his stomach as she tore through his armor and chest to get to his heart. In his last moment of awareness he had the strange thought that Belle Morte would appreciate the image of his blood sprayed across Valkyrie's decolletage and then dripping in between and running down to pool in the corset...

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"Jonas Hooker, you are hereby promoted to Captain of the Guard," Morte D'Amour's placid voice announced on the hallway intercom.

"Fucking Maruk gets himself fired when all this shit is going down," Clarissa grumbled to the other eleven remaining members of the Forum Guard waiting in the hallway. The eon old Scottish woman hated that they were waiting behind the WWII blast doors as others were heard fighting and dying in the next hallway. "Why are these stupid doors here anyway?" she said to no-one in particular.

"In case a bomb went off, they would limit the damage so that the blast wouldn't travel the whole hallway," Edgar the ever proper Englishman answered as he loaded his prize Ithaca double-barreled eight gauge shotgun.

"She knows that fool," Hermes growled, always the bully, especially when it came to anyone talking to the woman he desired above all others. The big Brazilian licked the old dried blood off of his battle hammer as he thought of her red hair spread underneath him. Showing his normal amount of restraint, he started to massage himself in front of them all.

"Easy now everyone." Captain Jonas Hooker commanded to the others. "I don't know what they're thinking, making the change now but it's not like we can do anything about it either way. We got us a dangerous beast coming down the hall, she's painting the walls red so let's get our minds in the game. We've all done this before. Four groups of three masters each is enough to stop anything in the world. Since we're short one, I'll join Meyer and Renardo's group. Spread out, when she breaks through, we go like clockwork. Keep your areas covered and advance in formal order."

"This isn't the Civil war, General," Pablo, the huge Mexican that belonged to the Dragon answered. "We know how to do this." He used a small pocket knife to carve Nordic runes into his arms. Pablo had found a book on Norse mythology some unfortunate soul left behind and he thought that runes of strength and protection couldn't hurt. He licked the freely bleeding cuts to help them close faster and was silently pleased with the tie-dyed effect the blood had on his white tee-shirt.

"I wasn't a General and I know we know how to do this," Jonas replied as he loaded his pistols and checked his Bowie knife. "But this gal has the bosses a little concerned so let's not screw the pooch here. Antonio, Clarke, David, move up to the first position, your job is to obstruct her movements so the next group, Jonathan, Edgar, and Basil can lock her in place for the kill."

"You know what this reminds me of?" Jonathan Westland, the former U.S. Navy Seal said aloud to the group. "The opening Darth Vader scene in the first and best Star Wars movie."

"I am liking to be Darth Vader," Basil the old vamp that nobody could figure out what nationality he was or who his master or sire were, spoke out as he pulled the high collar of his black great coat up to his eyes and walked about like a silver-screen mummy in an apparent attempt to imitate Darth Vader that none of the other guard members got even though they all laughed. His true power level was a mystery to them as well, so better to be safe than sorry.

"No, dude," Jonathan said carefully, "we're the Rebels. The chick coming is Vader."

Basil was about to respond when the WWII blast doors, welded huge panels of steel, exploded open in a shower of sparks. The billowing smoke and the outer hall being bathed in darkness gave the sleek, dripping wet in splashes of red, leather clad, wicked red axe wielding vision of feminine brutality a mysterious and magical aura. Several of the guard members took unnecessary deep breathes and found themselves having to reaffirm their desire to be in that hallway at that particular time.

"Hey, it's the welcoming committee," Faith said as she wiped werewolf from her eyes and assessed the new threats. Cleaning the Scythe off on a dead wereleopard at her feet, the slayer smiled as several weapons were raised to aim at her.
Finally, a challenge, she thought. "Let's do this!" and it was on...