The Boys and Their Artificer.

[Datatroll]

I fixed this months ago, it was done in ignorance, not maliciously. I waited some time and then asked if I could see this tag removed. I was told this would happen, that it wasn't policy to do so, but that they would make an exception as it was not done with ill intent and was immediately changed for compliance. It has now been months. I am somewhat annoyed. I won't be updating anything here until what I was told was going to happen occurs. It's no skin off my nose. My posting here does nothing for me, there are plenty of places I can post my words. I don't plan to delete anything, but I won't add either.
Don't make a mistake here even through ignorance. They won't let you forget it, they won't let you fix it, and they seem to want to drag your name through the mud for all time over it.

Take care.

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WARNING! If you have not read these stories I have posted here:
A Boy and His Dog. Novel - Fantasy - Modern and Xandificer. Xander as an Artificer. Novel - Fantasy - Modern both of which are available here on my story page, this is not going to make a lick of sense. And before too long, you'll need to familiarize yourself with: Four People With Horrible Luck + Vegas = WTF?! Novel
Might be better to just read those first, get it out of the way.

This is the result of hitting writer's block pretty hard on three different stories I was working on that I loved and felt had a lot of promise, backing up a bit, and then remembering what is legal now in Washington State.

Call that a warning if you wish. The following is pretty ridiculous, involves world-breaking, game-breaking, and power levels that are pretty stupidly over the top. It is also the first thing I have posted here that might actually need a mature tag? I never actually describe the act, but I dance around random procreation-laden topics enough in spots that the warning seems like it might be viable. So if your mother raised you right, go elsewhere. For the rest of you?
Welcome to the train wreck.

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Chapter Zero.
Wrong Turn.

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"Are we sure this is going to work?" Willow gasps out in a panic as Alex hits the final sequence for the jump. They had missed their destination by who knows how many dimensions on their last attempt to make it back home and the now twenty-eight-year-old technomancer was at the end of her rope trying to keep everything under control with the electrical systems in the truck.

Alexis rolls her eyes. "No damn clue. But not much could be worse than staying here, damn dimension of fire and lightning."

Buffy screams so loud she can be heard without the earpieces from the shuttle attachment and through two bulkheads. "Goddamnit Alex, hit the button that thing is coming around for another pass!"

Without further ado, Alex slams her palm down on the button to engage the dimensional drive. And shares a look with Kendra.

Worst. Vacation. Ever.

>>>>

After the swirling sensation of having been flushed down a toilet, the Truck reappears in a structure of some kind. They only even know this because Alex kicks on the headlights, the darkness here is beyond oppressive. There is a miasma outside the vehicle that reminds them a little of the smoke from their post graduation trip and the forest fire in Yellowstone park. The positive pressure in the vehicle means that they can't smell it, but it is obvious that even if the truck wasn't stuck in what looks to be a giant stone building and there was a sun shining, they would have limited visibility.

The other thing that becomes clear easily is the sound of screams. Thousands of them. Constantly. And not terribly far away.

Willow's voice comes in over the earpieces. "Can't say I like the sound of that. What... What are we going to do now?"

Alex's disgust is clear over the line. "Well, we won't be leaving anytime soon unless we want to make a completely random jump. Keying it up without calibration and no chance to recharge the systems after the last attempt fried the navigation system. I am going to need some help to get this sorted, Willow. Gimme a hand up here?"

Kendra nods at the sparking under the dash and drums her fingers on the armrest. "Buffy, do you think we should explore a little? I am not sure it would be a good idea to try to liberate another hell dimension right this second, but I still have to believe it would be better if we found them than if they found us."

There is a sigh on the line. "She has a point, Alex. Will you be okay if we take a peek around while you two are being the Mrs. Fix-its?"

Alex groans. "Yeah. Do me a favor and roll out the hole for the big guy outside before you take off though. If things go to hell while you two are exploring, I really don't want to be forced to ditch you two. Between that Iron Golem and the combat homunculus we should be okay unless whatever is out there is really ridiculous. I'll send Skite with you so I have updates if you run into trouble."

With that, the two slayers make their way to the back. They pull open the drawers that contain their gear, and lovingly put on the tools that make them so much more powerful now than even when they were forced to kill a hell goddess. Full suits of armor constructed of alloys that can't even be made without magic. Stronger than the hate of Atlas, and as light as a paperback novel. Capable of flight and sustaining life in the vacuum of space or the bottom of the ocean. Significant increases in their strength, dexterity, and constitution. resistances to energy damage that go right to the edge of making them immune to most normal forms of it.

Built in ranged weaponry on their forearms with multiple functions, including an unlimited ammunition supply of crossbow bolts from a generator hidden inside an extra-dimensional space.

Buffy's gladius. A weapon that has been built up over the years to a level that causes even demon lords to seriously consider retirement plans when it comes to their attention that she is around.

Kendra's short swords. Neither is quite up to Buffy's standards. But there are two of them. And the wielder of them passed the point of grand master swordswoman nearly five years ago, since leaving that rather provincial descriptor far, far behind.

It only takes a minute, and legitimately it could have been far quicker if they were in a hurry. Most of the equipment has enchantments on it that will, with the utterance of a particular phrase, merely appear on their bodies ready to go. But it is always nice, when there is time, to put it on manually. Adjust the straps just so. Settle the scale plates on their bodies and see to it that all their bits are comfortable with nothing pinched or out of place.

The now expanded double doors on the back are opened and after unrolling the correct portable hole, the nine foot golem makes its way out and stands at guard by the rear of the vehicle. Its built-in three-foot blades release from their housings on the back of it's forearms like overbuilt switchblades and locking into place. It then begins a short patrol around the truck, it's beady onyx eyes keeping it from accidentally stepping on the three Iron Defenders that join it on it's patrol or running into the four flying Arbalester units that are acting as aerial lookouts.

Then the two Slayers close back up the truck and head for the doorway to the room they appeared in after the frantic dimensional hop. Seven feet across and ten feet high, with huge iron pull rings to open it. At first glance it might seem that it would be difficult for a pair of petite women to get it open, particularly with one being just under three feet tall. But Buffy takes the moment to suddenly shoot up to eleven feet and gives the thing a hard yank, causing a shudder in the structure as some kind of locking mechanism fails and the squealing sound of shearing metal giving way leads to the massive metal-banded wood construction to swing open.

They both freeze for a few seconds. Stop. Wait to hear something running this way.

They hear nothing but the plodding footsteps of the golem, and the now louder screaming of what almost has to be the damned.

There is light beyond, but it is of a reddish hue, and they were correct. Between the dim light and the heavy particulate in the air, they can't see more than fifty yards at best in the huge corridor that runs from side to side or the other that goes straight ahead, with doorways every so often along the stretch. Looking at each other and offering a shrug the bespeaks many years working together, enough that oftentimes speech is not needed, they begin moving slowly forward straight ahead.

Slowly. Silently, even the armor they wear is not so crude as to dare to rattle as they make their way.

The screams seem to come from behind the doors. Not all of them. Not even most of them. It seems to be about a third. Whether the rest are home to things that are sleeping or they are merely empty is anyone's guess. Using a bit of sign language they decide between the two of them that if they are going to try to crank open any of these doors they will do it on the way back, after they have verified that the area is at least reasonably clear of hostiles. No sense in inviting trouble, after all.

After what they are guessing is at least a mile and passing a few more crossroads, which they ignore as getting lost in hell seems like it would be unbelievably stupid, they finally begin to hear something other than screaming.

They hear a battle.

Running forward the two of them find themselves at the top of a long, fifty foot wide staircase that leads down into what can only be a demon city. Black stone structures and poorly lit buildings that seem to use wall sconces with greasy, smokey flames. Better light and less crud in the air allow for them to get an idea of what is going on.

And the streets run green.

The demons are a red-skinned and very tough variety that comes complete with ram's horns that they recall from long ago. One of their kind had once given up it's impressive set of horns upon death and were then made in the set of billiard balls. From where they stand there has to be at least a thousand of them visible, and total there must be a hundred times as many.

And they are losing, spilling their greenish pus-like blood everywhere as they fall.

They are losing hard, even outnumbering their opponents at least twenty to one in the visible areas.

They are losing street by street and building by building and they are losing without seeming to have any luck at all actually killing any of the massively overbuilt quadrupeds of a dizzying number of varieties that are tearing them to pieces.

There are furry wolf types, scaled versions with overbuilt, longer snouts that seem slightly reminiscent of alligators, massive tusked wild boars, any number that seems to have characteristics of giant cats. And they are absolutely destroying the enemy.

The skies are full of smaller, but still deadly looking winged demons that look like scaled harpies more than anything else. But they are falling from the sky like bloody rain and at least one of the causes is visible, just barely, from where they are.

A man in a green and yellow suit, wearing a jet pack that has a mini-gun installed over either shoulder is using burst fire to cut through their ranks like a tornado through a chicken farm.

A green tear in reality opens up just at the edge of their vision and a person steps out, armored and seemingly ready to fight despite being merely the size of a normal human. They are immediately surrounded by an honor guard of snarling and incredibly powerful-looking creatures that seem to be the very definition of 'War Pigs.'

Near them on the ground they see a purple clad warrior, obviously a woman, wielding a long bladed spear with a smirk under her masked eyes as she cleaves her way down a street, ducking blows heading her way while cutting demon after demon into quivering kibble.

Even the hounds stay clear of her, save one that looks like nothing so much as a Tasmanian Devil that happens to be four feet at the shoulder and stays at her side, easily as vicious as the one they travel with.

Then Buffy sees something that causes her heart to skip a beat. Exiting a building and preceded by what can only be a ridiculously overbuilt hyena, is Xander. Covered in blood and swinging an ax with the speed and power of a Slayer, they can see that he is calling out to the rest of the troops, and their formations change as he does. He is followed out of the doorway by another that causes this time both Buffy and Kendra to gasp.

It's Buffy.

She's wearing a half helm, and it's a distance away. But it can only be her that is swinging the spiked mace that she is with that face sporting the wicked grin she has. She is followed by what appears to be five hundred or so pounds worth of jaguar with a set of jaws that come complete with saber teeth.

Xander sheathes his ax and pulls a rifle, beginning to assist the removal from the sky another flock of now dying demons before they can overwhelm what is obviously his friends.

Kendra and Buffy look at each other, and with a shared war cry they begin the process of leaping down the stairs to join the fray.

>>>>

>> Four hours later.
Alexis regards her male doppelganger with a smirk. "So, I didn't get boobs in every dimension. Good to know. We are gonna be stuck here for at least three weeks, probably a lot longer, getting everything fixed so we can make another attempt to get back home and we just liberated a city full of materials. Is there anything you and your people needed? Always happy to help a fellow group of hell-crushers."

The lopsided smirk from Xander that is so obviously the male version of his counterparts makes an appearance as they regard each other. Most of his forces are still ferreting out the last of the demons in the city before they start to release the prisoners that were stolen from his earth, which is of course why they are here. Alex's Buffy and Kendra had convinced him to follow them back to the truck once the bulk of the fighting was done and he came, flanked by his hybrid companion and the human that now that she is closer and not surrounded by mega-swine, is obviously Dawn.

"Hell yeah. We can use all the help we can get. And it doesn't have to be a one way exchange if you're interested."

His wide smile would make the demons in a million dimensions squirm in trepidation if they had been there to see it.

"How do you feel about puppies?"

>>>>

Somewhere beyond the scope of both mortal and demon, a man with two faces falls out of his chair he is laughing so hard.

>>>>

Author's note.
As always, I own nothing here.
Not Buffy, not D&D, not Man's Best Friend, Not Kick-Ass. Lemme alone.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter One.
End Times.

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With a whisper of a ripping sound followed by an audible clunking, the massive armored truck appears on the ground in what is obviously a city in the throes of some kind of major conflict. The sounds of guns chattering at high rates of fire are constant and the area is peppered with the results of explosions, with more occasionally booming out from the surrounding buildings. The sarcasm of a short blond Slayer is heard loudly from the backseat.

"Nice one, Q. You brought us to a freaking war zone."

Ignoring her for a moment Alex calls out on their communications set to Kendra, who is currently on the attached shuttle just above them. "Hey Smalls, can you pick us up and hang maybe forty feet up? I don't think we want to be on the ground here. Activating invisibility spheres."

Then she turns to Buffy. "Look, if your sister hadn't managed to accidentally screw up our beacon to get home right before pulling a sleeping beauty on us, we wouldn't be having to make educated guesses trying to get home. How about you calm the hell down and let me try to figure out what went wrong this time?"

She then changes her tone to something closer to friendly, if still strained more than a little by the situation. "Hey Red? Can you check the mundane coms gear and see what you can find out? This looks a little like a city on earth. The same scale at least, not sure I guess beyond that. Can't tell if it's our dimension, but the quicker you find out the happier I'll be."

The call comes back instantly from Willow's position back in the living quarters of the truck, where she has set up a small office-like space for her high-tech gear. The sound of tapping keys is constant as she responds.

"I'll see what I can do. There is a lot of chatter on the radio, but most of it is scrambled pretty heavily and the stuff I don't think is technically scrambled is still coming in pretty garbled. I don't think the transmission systems they use are quite the same as ours. Probably differences due to the dimension. I can't rule it out, but I don't think we are home yet. Too bad the magic translators built into the suits require proximity to the person speaking and don't work over tech."

Alex groans in annoyance. "Well, this is home for at least the next three days. After the patch job I had to cobble together back in that hell dimension, the system will take that long to recharge after every jump now. Buffy, do you mind checking on the puppies back in cargo? This is their first jump, and they're pretty young besides."

Buffy nods. "Yeah, I'll go see what's up." She laughs. "Knowing what they'll grow into makes the cute little critters they are now seem so weird."

Willow comes back on the line. "I'm just glad that the Dedicated Wrights and them get along and they don't mind cleaning up after the furballs. Little poop machines."

Kendra comes back on the line and doesn't sound thrilled.

"Hey, guys? Do we know anything about a blue demon with some kind of funky frill on its head? Like... Well, honestly it looks like back swept blue tentacles except they don't move at all, rigid and stuff. Using some kind of funky blue magic? I ask because there's a bunch of them around and they seem to be fighting a coalition of things that look like some kind of demonic undead. Maybe some mechanical undead mixed in? It's a mess. If it matters to the urgency of your answer here, the reason I ask is that there is a hold-out spot maybe a block from here that looks like it's about to get overrun. If we are going to help, we'll need to make that call soon."

There is silence for a few seconds. Then Alex's voice comes over the line. "Can you bring us up another ten feet? I can't see what you are looking at."

As the craft moves up just a bit further, Alex can see them beyond the building they are next to once they clear it. Four strange blue-skinned and magic-wielding demons that are desperately trying to hold back a veritable tide of some of the ugliest things they've ever seen, and it is pretty obvious that they are about to get swept away and mulched by a whole slew of grasping claws and heavily armed things that are absolutely slamming gunfire into their position.

But there are two other things about the mess that strike Alex and make her decide to take action. The first is that there are ships in the sky, visible now that they are clear from the street where they could only really look straight up. And secondly, there are more than four. There are at least two more of these strange aliens active, and they are both hiding behind some kind of magical blue barrier that the first is obviously powering to keep the gunfire from reaching the twenty-some stretchers of dead and wounded that the other is trying to perform first aid or something on.

"Smalls, you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Yes." Comes the grim-toned response. "Q, I am really not happy letting this one go. Do you think we can help them without dying ourselves?"

Rolling around the possibilities in her head for a few seconds, Alex responds with a sigh. "I honestly don't know. We've never faced these things, whatever they are, and I've never come across guns that look anything like these things that they're using. I do know that it rubs me wrong that these things are going out of their way to try to destroy what looks like an aid station. And it's worth noting I think that there are actual spaceships flying around, so the tech level here is both unknown and probably really ugly. I won't act on this without the go-ahead of the group." There is relative quiet for a few seconds as the constant sound of gunfire and explosions continue unhindered, surrounding them on all sides. Then Buffy calls out.

"I'm armoring up and heading to the shuttle for access to the gunnery ports. For what it's worth, I say we help. If we are going to be stuck here for three days, it would be better to have friends and I would rather have friends that defend their wounded than ones that attack a med station."

Nobody seems to have a response to that statement, so the next minute and a half is a lot of getting armed and armored while the truck starts floating that direction at its top speed of five miles per hour.

A jet fighter it ain't.

The sound of the fighting gets louder as they close the distance and Alex makes her way up to the shuttle for the duration of the fight, where she has better access to be able to use her alternate armaments. Willow is still desperately plucking away at her systems trying to make heads or tails of what she is starting to suspect is completely alien transmissions and programming that probably uses advanced hardware to boot.

As the truck pulls in twenty feet overhead of the beleaguered defenders who appear to be entirely female, Alex shrinks down to three feet tall and gets on the roof while the two Slayers, also shrunken to their three-foot height so they can access the shuttle, each take up a position in the gunnery emplacements on the two left-side corners. Swiveling the armored doors back around them so stray gunfire can't get inside and then resealing the locks with them open to the elements above the chest, they pull down the built-in weapon that Alex has installed.

Or rather, one of the three that is hidden in each of these corner stations until it is pulled out to be used. The first is a setup designed for both firefighting and crowd control, but this situation calls for more than the water cannons. The second option is the weapons that launch the most powerful 'Magic Missile' that Alex can make. The damage is reasonable, but primarily they exist for the ability to lock onto a target. Once you have them locked, if you can see them and they are within the two-hundred-foot range, you can hit them. Highly useful against quick and agile foes, but with an attack rate of only one for every six seconds, not ideal here. Both of them go for what they have lovingly dubbed the 'McBurgerizers.'

Ten years of innovation, resources, and frustration by Alex, Dawn, Jenny, and Willow were all built into a single system. The result of incremental advances over that time means that the system at this point, while the current one is quite new, is built on tried and true components that haven't let them down in more than five years. Used primarily for fire support in situations like this, where the only way to win is to simply spit so much damage downrange that where exactly that damage is going doesn't matter so much.

The system fires simple half-inch balls of steel, iron, wood, whatever you decide to put into the self-distributing and organizing drum and feed system. It can be set for up to twenty distinct categories, but most of the time all they actually use is iron. Because getting more of those made is free and easy for them using a system built a decade ago that magically makes a few thousand more at need once a day. With a maximum capacity of sixty thousand rounds per gun all hidden away in an extra-dimensional space and with the general mix being ten thousand wood, ten thousand steel, and the rest iron, the chances they will run out of ammunition anytime soon is laughably small.

Using a system of twenty-six firing chambers that are set into a chain drive, reloaded at a position near the bottom of the device, and then fired at the top, the thing can lob metal death to a maximum range of about a thousand feet. Admittedly though if you are aiming at anything past four hundred feet it is at best luck if it hits and without giving the weapon the full minute to charge up and cast its own enhancement the range is half that. The device has six barrels on it, and while they can be rotated through the firing position it is by no means required that they do so. The damage on the iron balls isn't terribly impressive on its own. But the barrels are another place where the artificers have spent a significant amount of time and money.

Using a series of switches to indicate the ones you want to be used in the rotation, a person can customize their damage output to deal with specific targets and circumstances. Fire, cold, acid, electric, undead bane and demon bane are the ones currently installed. Combining these with the current weapon augment crystal that is empowering the device on the whole, the carnage can be considerable. Even devastating. With a pair of upright hand grips that each have their own trigger and set of switches, it is alternately possible to have two sets of custom load-outs that you can swap between on the fly if things have truly gotten off the rails.

Admittedly, compared to many modern machine firearms the modest fire rate of two hundred and sixty rounds per minute is less than inspiring. But many years of testing have brought out a few things that tend to mitigate this drawback. First, alternating between flaming and freezing shots will have a devastating effect on most metals and ceramics as the constant barrage forces bits of it to expand or contract, reducing its integrity until it eventually gives up and starts to crack. Falling to pieces shortly thereafter. When dealing with technology, the acid tends to penetrate and weaken as well as being conductive, plus the shocking damage will short out most things very quickly. In a situation like this?

With no verification that these things are actually demons or undead, both girls choose, completely independently of one another, to cycle through the other four.

The defenders have a fairly decent setup, as they have managed to funnel the seemingly mentally deficient enemies into a straight approach along an impressively long stretch of road. Their only weak spot is a ten-foot gap in their defenses that they are using to entice the enemy to attack along that route, and they are using their blue magical barriers to close the hole up on the occasion that things have started to get dicey.

The problem is that apparently these strange demons can't fight and put their force fields up at the same time. So when things start to get bad, they just keep getting worse unless there is a lull in the attack. From her vantage point on the roof, Alex can see that they will get no such breather anytime soon. The swarming mass is a skittering horde that reaches all the way down the road a good four hundred yards before it disappears behind a building in the distance.

Hundreds of the things. Human seeming ones, aside from being obviously horribly corrupted. Looking like nothing so much as a fusion between a sprinting version of the stereotypical zombie and a 'program' from the TRON movies with added bio-mechanical bits just for good measure. Weird, lumpy, four-eyed ones that think nothing of stopping to eat their fallen comrades. Tall, powerful-looking ones with a head frill similar to the local blue demons, aside from the lack of a tentacle look with them being all straight and pointy. Massive four-legged ones that move as though they have the power of a tractor in them and seemingly ignore anything in their way that isn't at least a ton or more of material. Throwing to the side or plowing through any lesser obstacles.

The list of horrors is endless, it appears. In the distance, she can even see enormously huge flying creatures that are built to the same horrific standards and are in combat with some kind of flying attack aircraft that are obviously having a hard time of it being as outnumbered as they are.

"Go ahead and take the time to let the range on the guns warm-up, for your accuracy. I am going to drop a wall of force in the way to buy us the time and give these demons a chance to catch their breath."

She then places the wall about a hundred feet away. It stretches from one side of the street to the other and though invisible as many force effects are, its presence is immediately felt as the writhing throng of terrors suddenly stops advancing at that point, slamming into it. Then Alex takes a look through her eyepieces, clicking through the options that she has built into her helm at this point and the results are brought up on her heads-up display. A neat toy that Jenny and Willow were able to patch into her set up a few years ago during an upgrade. Unfortunately, interpreting what she sees is a skill that only she and her Dawn actually possess, so it isn't standard gear for everyone.

"Huh. Ladies, our blue demons aren't demons. Not sure what they are, but since this is a new dimension they could very well be the local equivalent of humans. Their opponents are coming across as some kind of construct and undead mashup, but somehow without any magic. Also, the blue not-demons aren't actually using magic. No idea what it is. Anyway, I'd go ahead and kick on the undead bane in your guns and use the 'Demolition' augment crystal. I don't want to fall back on the storm and lightning shtick because the guys we are backing have fliers out, but I am going to drop an 'acid fog' about two hundred feet out, and I'll drop another one in about a minute and a half to keep it going. Sending out the Arbalester flight and Skite to keep an eye on things, but I am going to keep the Iron Defenders and the big guy under wraps for now. We'll call them a last resort. If we are still fighting this crap after the second Acid Fog drops, I'll put up a 'Blade Barrier' in a circle, so they have to walk through it twice. Having Green activate the anti-ranged enchantments now and the Wall of force holding them back should drop in the next fifteen seconds or so."

Buffy seems a little doubtful when she next speaks. "That spell is supposed to stop slings and bows. We've seen it'll stop bullets and take the edge off higher calibers but... You think it's going to actually stop what they're using?"

Alex shakes her head, the fact that nobody can see her do it is irrelevant. This situation is rapidly going downhill.

"Honestly? No idea. But I have to believe it's better to have it up than not. Remember though, I can only activate it three times and it's ablative. They'll probably knock it down pretty quick and then we'll be dependent on the armor. Against most things I'd have faith in that, but against space guns? Your guess is as good as mi... Heads up, here they come!"

As the wall of force drops and the horde starts forth, the truck pops into view. The invisibility is canceled by the two slayers holding down the triggers on their respective weapons. The only downside to having upgraded the main defensive guns to the point that they needed to be built into the hull of the shuttle. Seconds later the 'Acid Fog' pops into view and Alex lays down to make herself a smaller target where she is on the roof.

The four blue non-demon defenders below are obviously shocked to have some kind of massively armored, metal-wheeled, monstrosity of a truck randomly appear above them, right down to the skid plate which looks like it may as well have been borrowed from the hull of a battleship. But the output of damage from the two machine guns and the four drones above them is more than welcome and really, they don't have any time to be concerned about anything that isn't actively trying to kill them. After a few seconds, a small orange flickering ball flies out from the top of the truck and incinerates a huge patch of the things, reaching both sides of the street in a forty-foot blast of fire that does hideous amounts of damage.

After that, the devastation ramps up as every few seconds another spell of one sort or another will rip through swathes of the enemy. Burning, freezing, bludgeoning. Corroding, and eventually being sliced up, the vast majority of their assailants simply charge through it all and are destroyed. But then, the ones dumb enough to walk through all of that aren't the real worries anyway. It's the smarter ones, with the guns, that stop and fire, that are proving to be a problem.

Well, as much of a problem as they can be. The two Slayers are melting the assault with the damage they are spitting out, and years of experience have taught them exceptionally good threat assessment skills. It takes them maybe fifteen seconds to start to recognize the ones that are going to shoot versus the ones that will happily kill themselves in their ignorance, and they begin to focus fire the worrisome ones.

In the end, it takes nearly ten minutes to eventually stem the tide. They are buried seven and eight deep in places by the time Alex can see that they are slowing to a trickle. But she can also see many of those giant flying things landing and taking off in the area, so it seems probable that the next wave will only be maybe ten or fifteen minutes away.

"Kendra, do me a favor and head up to the shuttle pilot's chair, get us landed. I think we are going to have to talk to these people. Take them somewhere maybe. It'd be a shame to have just saved them and then leave and watch them die in the rearview mirror. I need to take a minute to do a quick damage assessment before anything else."

Alex then flies off the side and checks out the damage. Which is honestly really light. For all practical purposes, the truck looks like it has been lightly peppered by sandblasting agents. Yeah, it would eventually do real damage. But apparently, the locals weren't used to trying to shoot through three inches of adamantine plate and a spell that effectively cuts the velocity of a projectile by up to ninety percent by way of defense.

She takes a moment to silently chuckle at her own foolishness. She'd had that supposed 'Deep Iron' ore in her stores for nearly four years before she had gotten around to experimenting with it and found that it was actually a combination of iron and adamantine mix, heavy on the iron.

Then again, it was an awfully busy four years.

She'd dropped a cool million on more of it once she'd figured out what it actually was, as soon as modern science worked out how to clean the stuff up instead of just making iron and steel with super hard inclusions in it, the crap would be worth so much she might not even have the option to buy it again.

When the truck touches down she lands as well and one of the blue bipeds walks up to her. In an effort to put forth a good honest front she flips up her faceplate, activates her magical translator, and holds out her hand.

The blue woman stops dead in her tracks. Apparently, the fact that Alex was three feet tall didn't shock her. Maybe the fact that she wasn't blue did? Hesitantly she reaches out and shakes hands.

"Thanks for bailing us out. Lt. Kurin. If you're looking for Commander Shepard, you just missed her. She came through maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago. We were trying to cause a distraction for her so she could complete some mission for high command. I'd offer to send somebody with you to show you the way, but I really can't spare anybody. We already lost everything we have that flies and most of my platoon. It's just us four effectively now, and I can't leave my wounded unguarded."

Alex puts a hand up to her ear to indicate that she is receiving a transmission, and listens to Willow. Her voice has a quiver to it that doesn't spell good things.

"Guys? I still can't get my translator to sort out the language they are using on their broadcasts, but I managed to unscramble the video that is getting passed around. It isn't perfect, so I can't be sure. But it looks like the entire planet is under this kind of attack, pretty much. This is a genocide in progress. And those big ship things with the arms are part of the bad guys, and there are a lot of them heading in this general direction. If we are going to do anything, I think we need to do it really dang fast and then get the heck out of here."

She puts her hand back down as Buffy walks over next to her.

"I'm sorry, did you say your name was Curran?"

The blue woman nods hesitantly. "Kurin, yeah."

Alex and Buffy share a look and Buffy whispers. "Alternate reality? He looks good as a blue chick."

Alex nudges her and stifles a smirk. This really isn't the time.

"I'm Alexis. This is Buffy. And our tech and coms specialist tells me that you have a veritable flock of these giant crustacean-looking things heading this way, so unless you want to hang out and say hi to 'em, we are going to have to try to airlift you out of here."

The lieutenant nods but looks confused. "What about Shepard?"

Alex shakes her head. "I have no idea who that is, but unless they are back here in about seven minutes or less they are going to need their own ride. We're leaving."

Looking even more lost than she was, Kurin nevertheless nods in agreement. "I have seven wounded and two medics aside from the four of us. Can you accommodate that?"

Alex nods. "It isn't going to be a comfortable ride, particularly for you all. But it's better than staying here. Let's get you loaded up." Activating her com, she cuts out the sound outside the helmet and speaks out.

"Kendra, Buffy, I need the eight bunks in the back set up and get the puppies penned up in the living quarters for now." Before anybody can complain about the poop machines getting all over the place, she continues. "From what I can see from here some of her people are being held together by staples and hope at this point. The back is going to be an extremely cramped surgery for a while. Just make it happen, please."

Then she walks over to the wounded and digs out her third schema ring, this one carrying twenty-five spells that do healing of one sort or another. When she starts using them, the panicky chatter from the blue people cuts to nothing as they stare in awe.

A leg missing just below the knee, replaced.

An eye that had been gouged out, regrown.

Three had taken severe gunshot wounds, two of them multiple times. Healed.

The last two are a more difficult call, but the scrapes on their armor make her think that they had been bludgeoned pretty good by something. A basic healing spell each to get them mobile.

None of them are in perfect shape, but Alex has a finite amount of healing she can pull off on a given day and doesn't want to worry about not being able to heal her own people if it comes to that.

She is beginning to believe these blue people are actually aliens since they aren't demons and seem to recognize what humans look like. They are getting motioned onto the truck and she gives them a quick overview of what to expect.

"Our truck has an... Experimental. Yeah, let's go with that. An experimental stealth system. It is going to really mess with you because when we kick it on the entire thing and everything on it fades out of sight and your soldiers won't have what you need to see through it. So get comfortable and shut your eyes if you have to." She turns to lieutenant Kurin again. "I assume that you are the ranking officer present?"

She nods. "Yes, now."

Alex nods sympathetically and hands her two pairs of goggles that she had dug out of a storage locker against one wall. "I've only got two of these spares. One for you and one for the medic you are leaving behind back here. I am going to need you upfront so I have somebody that can tell me where the hell to go. Don't forget to grab anything you can't live without. I don't think we are coming back."

One of the Arbalesters launches a glass grenade of Alex's design. Three chambers. A bitch to make. A center of compressed air, a middle chamber of alchemist's fire, and an outer chamber of an acidic slime she'd developed that is death to metal and organic. The popping of the glass followed by the splatter of acid and the whooshing sound of the fire igniting then spreading at high velocity reminds everybody that they are really short on time.

"You have a minute. Then we leave, meet me in the front then."

Forty-six seconds later, the truck is lifting off and the invisibility going live again. The gasps of shock from the back are expected, but still annoying. Someday she'll find somebody that believes her.

Kurin blinks through the goggles as everything fades to a transparent, but still visible in a ghostly kinda way state. As soon as she pulls them up to her for head for a moment, they fade from view altogether.

"How in the hell?!"

Alexis sighs. "Would you believe that we are not from around here? Direct me, so I can tell the pilot. We really need to get moving. Stealth it has. Speed it does not."

The astonished blue lady points in a direction, and after checking the dash Alex calls it up. "Kendra, I need a North by Northwest heading. Your own discretion for altitude."

The setting sun gives them a beautiful skyline.

The smoke of a dying civilization will do that.

>>>>

Author's Note:
I was perusing the Mass Effect 3 WIKI page the other day and by chance happened to notice that the damn thing had a Kurin in it to go with the Curran I was already using. And my muse, she grabbed onto that shit like a pit bull at the sausage factory and WOULD NOT let it go. I have no idea why. She's crazy.

For the record, I am not in any way trying to say that the husks aren't dangerous. Just trying to demonstrate that the truck is capable, after many trips to various hellish hot spots and being continually upgraded to deal with them, of being a serious contender in the badass categories.

Obviously, I do not own D&D, BTVS, or Mass Effect.

Nor do I own TRON, but frankly I am not sure such a small reference actually needs a disclaimer. If it did, Ready Player One would never have gotten published, that's for damn sure.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 3
Excuse Me, What?!

>>>>

The slow flight in the direction that the blue lady pointed is a study in horror. Every street, every block. Carnage flowed like a glacier. Cold, brutal, and inexorably everywhere you would care to look as they floated along. After ten minutes of the most depressing sightseeing imaginable, Alex turns to her fellow passenger.

"So, given what we've seen here so far you'll have to forgive me asking what are probably really dumb questions by your reckoning. But seriously, what the hell is going on? What are these things, and why are they here killing you all?"

The lieutenant's face almost manages to quirk up into a slight grin before it fades. "You really don't know, do you? How can you not? The Reapers? The cycle? It was your race that discovered it, years ago now."

Alexis shakes her head and shrugs. "No bells ringing here. When I said I was not from around here, I wasn't exaggerating."

Kurin snorts. "Well, you've either been living under a rock or you are from another dimension or something because the Reapers aren't attacking just here, they are attacking everywhere. Goddess, they started the assault on your Earth. I am guessing you haven't been home for a while."

The seconds of silence begin to stack up and when Kurin finally looks over at her new friend it is with an expression of something between fear and awe.

"That's it, isn't it? I studied dimensional theory in college two hundred and fifty years ago, but I still remember most of it. It explains the low-tech equipment in some areas and incredibly powerful in others, what with the healing and stealth capabilities. Oh, my Goddess. Do you have anything that can stop the Reapers?"

She ends this by pointing at one. A mile-long at least from the end of its longest grasping arm to the termination of its thrusters. As they watch it takes a few seconds to power up a red beam of pure energy that blasts down from where it is nearly five miles in the sky and into what looks to Alex's eyes to be a block tower. An enormous housing structure containing who knows how many people.

It is obliterated. Reduced to glowing sand and twisted, smoking metal. The shock wave of the blast flattens an additional four such structures, which in turn deal significant damage to another dozen in their death throes as they fall. The power and death of the single attack are beyond Alex's ability to easily quantify. Nothing she has experienced, not on the Hellmouth, not in actual hell dimensions, and not in the Janus supplied memories that gave her the abilities she now possesses have in any way prepared her for this. Not the scale of this thing, and certainly not for the reality that from where she sits she can see another eight of these things. Fifteen if she uses the side mirrors, and this is supposedly a global event. Galactic, even. The sheer magnitude of it is soul-crushing. All she can do is stare and shake her head for nearly half a minute.

"No. I got nothing that can stop this. Why? Why are they here?"

Kurin looks down a bit, the light in her eyes that she had dared to allow winking out as this hope too, becomes lost.

"Nobody knows. From what I have gathered from the intelligence reports, these things dwell out in dark space. The area beyond the edges of the galaxy. Where there are no stars, and so we've never felt the need to go explore. Then every fifty thousand years, they come back in and spend a few hundred years getting rid of any sentient species that has managed to sort out how to leave their planet's atmosphere. They tried to start a few years ago. Just one of them. It managed to nearly wipe out our largest space station. The galactic hub, the Citadel. Subverted a bunch of beings, mostly artificial intelligence types but some organics too. Just one of these things almost brought the galaxy to its knees. But we beat it, and the people in high places wanted to put it all behind us. Weren't willing to listen to the few that were worried that it was just a taste of what was to come."

She rolls her eyes. "Well, they should have. By all accounts, now we have thousands of the things in the galaxy just going crazy trying to kill us all. Last I heard there was something like six hundred of them in Asari space, and half of them are here on Thessia. The only reason we know what little we do is directly due to your people, as I understand it. Found evidence that made sense, once we knew they were real."

Trying to wrap her mind around this concept is beyond her abilities at the moment, so instead Alex asks the other question that has been on her mind.

"And who is this Shepard person?"

Nodding, Kurin responds. "I suppose it follows that you wouldn't be aware of her either. Jane Shepard, the first human Specter." At Alex's look of confusion, she elaborates. "The different races in the galaxy that sit on the council over on the Citadel have a ruling body. The Specters are their hit squad, troubleshooters, however you want to put it. They are all exceptional at what they do. They have to be to get the job, much less survive it. Humanity's first Specter has combat skills, I am sure. She'd have to, to survive what she's been up to for the last few years. But honestly, what she really excels at is as a leader. Reports say she has managed to get a Quarian and a Geth to work together. Solarian, Turian, and a Krogan even. She's good. But she can surround herself with the best and keep them on task and not killing each other. That's impressive."

"And she was here why?" Alex asks.

Kurin looks darkly out the window. "I don't know. Command wanted her to be able to access one of our older temples to collect something or other. There is a rumor floating around that the eggheads have found plans for something from the last surviving species of the cycle before us, some fifty thousand years ago. I guess they all pinned their hopes on it and they had the idea that some important bit of it was there to be had. But that's all I have. Rumors. They don't tell lowly little Lieutenants like me anything important. So I had to send fifteen of my sisters in arms to die trying to clear the path for the council's superstar and I couldn't even tell them why."

The awkward pause in the conversation is almost as bad as the view outside. But after a few minutes, Alexis tries to break the swiftly forming ice.

"So I take it the sexes are reversed for you? With humans, it is normally the men that go to war. Partially because they tend to be stronger, and also because, well, not to be sexist but they are a lot more expendable, really. Theoretically, one man can pretty easily keep a few hundred women pregnant or young kids running around. The reverse just isn't as viable in a survival of the species sense."

Kurin is still somewhat lost in her own dark thoughts but does answer the question.

"Asari don't have two sexes. Most races consider us feminine for reasons of breasts, I guess. But in the strictest sense of the word that isn't really accurate. We can reproduce off of anything that has a complex enough biology and nervous system that we can manage to meld with it and produce offspring. We use the strengths of our partner to recombine the DNA in the child. The only catch is that what comes out is always an Asari. No such thing as a half breed, no matter what disgusting vids you might come across."

She looks up. "And that's about where that conversation needs to end. Not that it's a state secret or anything, but I'm a soldier, not a doctor, and I have been too busy in my career to bother with children. So I really wouldn't have much for you from personal experience."

Alex looks more than a little shocked. "You've been too busy for two hundred years?"

Kurin sighs. "Yes. Asari live to about a thousand, sometimes longer." She again lets her gaze fall out the window. "Usually."

Alex nods, somewhat lost in thought. "So where are we going?"

Kurin shrugs. "Headquarters, if it's still there. As soon as you revealed yourself to be from off-planet with unusual technology taking you in to be debriefed and such became part of my job. Add in the healing and the fact you are the first inter-dimensional traveler that has ever been come across, and if I didn't and they ever found out they'd court-martial me and bury me. Might kill me first. Probably wouldn't bother."

Alexis isn't thrilled about that idea, but given what the options are and that she has three days to kill, it might be for the best. She is not looking forward to the 'I told you so' from Joyce when they finally make it back. They'd been going back and forth to various dimensions for five years, but oh no. When she has the nerve to use the ability for a vacation, of course that is when everything has to go wrong in every conceivable way. She can't help being just a little melodramatic, even in her own mind, as she blows out an exasperated breath and turns back to the scenery.

"So how far is it?

Kurin can't help it and barks out a quiet guffaw. "Ha! Normally, it's a quick three-minute flight. In this thing? Maybe three or four hours. Give or take a day."

Alex nods, not upset at the way her pride and joy is being maligned. She knows it's slow. But she also knows that barring sheer bad luck, they'll make it there. Looking down at the ground again, she just thanks whatever god you please that flying is an option. Trying to drive through that chaos would redefine cluster fuck.

"If we are that far out, I should probably go back and see to your squad. Can you folks eat human food? Do you eat? Are you hungry or thirsty?" She takes off her helmet and sets it on the dash. "I should probably go make sure everyone is okay."

Kurin nods. "I'll go with you. And yes, we can eat human food just fine. Though if you happen to come across Turians or Quarians, they have very different requirements."

Alex shrugs. "You're welcome to follow me if you can. The interior of the truck between the cab here and the rear cargo bay is entirely built to my scale. So it's going to be a bit of a tight fit for you."

With that, she hops down out of her seat and heads to the door. Opening this normal-sized, if slightly smaller than average door leads to a small workshop and a ladder that goes up into another compartment. But she instead crosses it quickly and opens a much smaller door, one that is only three feet high, and steps through. Seeing Willow in the flesh for the first time in what seems like days but has really only been about an hour is a life-giving experience for her compared to what the view outside is. She can also see Buffy in the kitchen playing with and riding herd on the puppies. Four of them, one for each of the vacationers. She gave her other-dimensional and penis swinging doppelganger a beacon to place that they can use to find him again, as well as one of the latest com units they can use to get in touch if they need anything.

Alex steps over to Willow who smiles and gets up as well. Kurin crawls painfully into the room to see the two engaged in a chaste, but loving embrace. She also sees there are a pair of what look like robot cats in the room, stoically keeping an eye out for anything untoward happening. Well, cats in shape somewhat. In reality, they are closer to the size of the larger, mid-sized wild predator version than anything domestic she had seen. At just under three feet tall and perhaps as much as four and a half long if they were standing rather than sitting, they are smaller than most such animals one might consider as an effective deterrent. But not by a huge amount, and being made of metal she would guess probably gives these things an edge.

Additionally, there is a veritable flight of small winged creatures. Looking like nothing so much as three-foot animated clay pixies in hardhats of various colors with wings that would appear to be stained glass, they scurry about completing a dizzying number of tasks.

"Busy in here. Amazing you can fit it all."

Willow looks up in surprise. "Oh. You are coming back here. I didn't know. Nothing wrong with that. Just didn't expect it. Welcome! Sorry." She sits back down, her cheeks becoming a little red in her embarrassment as she finally manages to stop talking herself further into her hole. Alex laughs, and Kurin smirks a little.

"Based on what little I know of your crew, Alex, I am going to guess that this is your tech person. If it makes you feel any better, our nerds tend to get tongue-tied at the drop of a hat too."

Everybody gets a chuckle out of that except Willow, who instead glares at Alex for having the nerve to agree that she is still a nerd. Hello, powerful technomancer these days!

"Sorry Willow. Lieutenant Kurin, this is Willow. The best part of my life and the one who will no doubt make me pay later for laughing at your little joke. The girl in the kitchen is Buffy, and the little horde of fuzzy things in there with her are the pups we picked up last dimension from some new friends. One for each of us."

Kurin glances around at all the clay pixies and looks questioningly at her.

"Those aren't really independent. They are more like extensions of my will than anything else. Same with Ravage and Howlback there." She motions to the cats while carefully making her way over the low gate between the kitchen and the living space. The swinging puppy stopper that separates the two and again between the kitchen and the short flight of stairs are actually very new. New to the point of having been built while Alex was asking Buffy to move the dogs in here. Yet the fit and finish are perfect, and the only thing giving away the fact that they haven't been there since the truck was originally constructed is the still slight smell of the linseed oil that was lightly brushed on and then dried from the breeze of beating wings.

As soon as she is in the kitchen, she is attacked by the puppies, little puppy kisses and drool appearing on her as if by magic from the three that are not currently being bottle-fed by Buffy. Tiny little balls of fur, no more than two to three pounds apiece. One looks something like a hyena cub, and that one all but clings to Alexis as if knowing somehow that this person will love him. There is one that looks like a bear cub, one that at a passing glance could be mistaken for a cougar with two oversized teeth sticking out of its mouth. The last, the one that Buffy is currently feeding, is undoubtedly the smallest at probably less than a pound, and it looks like nothing so much as a raccoon. They all, however, have three things in common. They all have skulls and jaws that seem disproportionately large, they all have a bright look of intelligence in their eyes even as they play, and they are all wearing collars with tags. The Asari immediately falls in love.

"Oh my Goddess, these little guys are adorable!"

She doesn't understand when the other three talkers in the room laugh at her until Willow speaks up from behind her and motions to the wall. "That's what their parents looked like. They are pretty cute now, but it won't last."

It takes a bit of cautious scrambling to make that happen, but the woman's eyes go wide when they see the video screen. The smallest of the parents is the raccoon-like relative, and that thing had to be a solid two hundred pounds of pure muscle with jaws that look as though they could put holes in battleship plate. She lets out a soft whistle.

"What do you need something like this for? People don't buy pets like that unless they plan to use them for something."

Alex shrugs. "Your 'Reapers' take the cake, but this isn't the only place we've found that is dangerous by a long shot. Besides, they're still very family-oriented even when they are adults. Very protective. We're happy to have them." She laughs. "Even if we are a little impatient to get through potty training."

At that, she sets the Hyena-looking one down and shoos them all away from the door to the cargo area. Still crawling, and having had an unbelievably hard time getting through the gap between the living space and the kitchen without accidentally setting them loose, Kurin finally makes it. Buffy snickers.

"Do we not have any of the chokers left? I thought there were like four or five of those things lurking around in a drawer somewhere."

Alex gives her a look. "Feeling trusting, are we?"

Buffy shakes her head. "You already grew back an eye and a leg. If they are going to be a problem based on your magic, that would have already put them over the edge. You know that."

Nodding with a grimace, Alex can't help but agree. "Yeah, I was trying not to think too hard about that."

Kurin looks confused. "Chokers? Do you mean for around my neck? Why would I need one of those?"

Alex holds up a hand. "Wait here a minute? I'll go get one for you."

Then she opens the door to the cargo area and steps in. With the exception of the one that actually has the goggles on and is checking the dressings on a few of the soldiers whose wounds hadn't quite closed completely with the healing that she had performed earlier, they all look about wildly for a few seconds as they try to find the source of the sound.

"Hello, everyone. Sorry the accommodations are so freaky for you. We weren't really planning to be a rescue shuttle so we don't have a whole lot of the tools for seeing through the stealth we use on hand."

The doctor, after making some generally soothing sounds and comments, looks her way as she is digging through a drawer again. After pulling out what looks to be four strips of cloth she turns back around and checks out the status in the cargo area in more detail. The seven wounded are all on the cots that have been socketed into the walls on either side, plus it looks as though the doctor that is not on duty is taking the last one for a bit of rest while the other works. But the last three, the ones that were fighting with Kurin, are making do leaned against walls while sitting on the floor. Alex goes back into the living area and hands one to the Lieutenant.

"Here. Put this on, hold the clasp firmly in your hand, and think small thoughts."

Kurin looks confused for a minute and then holds the small strip of silk with a clasp in the shape of a red-spotted mushroom, of all things. It takes her a second to put the pieces together, but when she does her eyes open wide and she seems to pale a bit at what she is thinking.

"Is this going to do what I think it is going to do?"

Buffy speaks up from behind her. "If you think it is going to make you our size, you'd be right. At least, hopefully." She peers at Alex questioningly. "Any reason it wouldn't work on an alien?"

Shrugging, Alex responds as best she can. "Honestly? No idea. It won't hurt her, that's all I know for certain. This kind of thing just doesn't work if it is going to fail in any respect. All or nothing."

Kurin puts it on and holds the clasp. Before she continues though, she feels she needs to verify something.

"It isn't permanent, is it?"

Willow and Buffy laugh, but Alex offers an understanding look. "No, of course not. Think small, you get small. Think big, you get big. Just don't do that in here for obvious reasons. And if you are already normal sized and you think big again, you get really big." She glances at her, considering for a moment. "My guess for you would be about eleven and a half feet. It'll double your current height, weight goes up proportionately."

With a bit of trepidation, Kurin does as she is bid, and in moments has shrunk down to the same size as Alex. She stands and spends a few seconds examining herself.

"How? Just how? And why do I feel stronger being smaller, it makes no sense. And my voice! I take it this is why you sound like children?"

Willow pipes up from behind her. "Weird isn't it? Yeah, shortens up the vocal cords. As for your strength, you're actually a little weaker. But your weight has dropped to less than twenty percent of what it was. These numbers aren't exact maybe, but it would be the same principle as taking a thousand-ton train with ten engines and making it a two hundred-ton train with nine engines. Technically yeah, the train is a little weaker. But the reality is that it is going to be faster, easier to get to speed, easier to stop, and use next to nothing in fuel compared to what it did. It is about the strangest feeling ever until you get used to it though."

Kurin is looking at the redhead for the length of her explanation and slowly nodding along with it. Then she looks confused again.

"Where is your choker then, I assume you got small the same way I just did."

Alex nods. "Yeah, pretty much. We don't actually use the chokers anymore. We have the spells permanently stenciled on our bodies at this point. We use the ability too much to risk losing it somehow, so we have tattoos that do the same thing."

The blue woman leans against the counter, thinking. "You can do this with just a tattoo? This is actually magic? Mysticism? For the most part, the Asari stopped believing in that kind of thing eons ago, and you're saying it's real?"

Buffy raises a hand. "Slayer. Mystic warrior of light. I can lift about three tons if I had to."

Alex smirks. "You can now."

Buffy sticks a tongue out at her. "Yes, the belt helps, I admit it. But I am still pretty damn strong even without it."

Willow again speaks up from the other room. "Technomancer. I do magic things with technology, basically. Trained under Alex's adopted mom for years."

Alex nods. "Artificer. I make magical items." Then she smirks. "For fun and profit."

Her voice gets significantly more serious. "I have three more of those and we have a few beds upstairs, as well as bathroom facilities and stuff. Sorry, we only have two pairs of eyes for you, but if you want to start dealing with your people I'll leave you to it. If you like, I have a trick to clean them up. I am betting you were in combat long enough to get pretty grungy. It's not the same as a chance to take a shower, but since our shower is currently a bunkhouse and medical bay, it'll have to do."

Kurin again looks at her in confusion. "I thought you said that was your cargo area?"

Alex nods. "That too. See, we use portable holes for storage mostly. We call that the cargo area because it's the only place in the truck big enough to lay them out."

Alex sighs at her incredulous expression. The three days will be past and they'll be leaving before she can get enough explanations out to satisfy this person.

>>>>

Author's Note:
Thanks for reading, have a great day!

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 4.
Itty Bitty Bytes.

>>>>

The cleanup that Alex offers Kurin and her troops is next, wherein the artificer runs a tool of some kind over them all one at a time that cleans them as well as repairing minor dings in their equipment. It is possibly the strangest thing yet, and to them it is standard. Run of the mill. Everything they do is amazing to Kurin and these extra-dimensional humans don't even see it as unusual.

Kurin has had an opportunity to get everybody to a bathroom and settled with her three fellow active combatants into the beds upstairs complete with chokers on for a few hours of rest while they are en route. Then she makes her way back to the living area where she sees that Buffy is missing and has been replaced with a darker-skinned woman who is roughhousing with the now rather tired-looking puppies. They are obviously flagging, but still too excited to sleep. She gets a nod as she enters from the stairwell, having to time her approach carefully so the little furballs can't squeeze past her to go exploring while she has the gate open.

"Hi there! I'm Kendra. Welcome aboard, though I guess I'm a bit late in saying. I was piloting earlier while you were getting your people sorted and whatnot."

Nodding, Kurin offers the most genuine smile she can while her world burns and holds her hand out to shake.

"Thanks again. Alexis tells me that you were on one of those most interesting slug throwers during the fight."

Kendra nods and sets the last of the puppies in their sleeping crate, as between herself and Buffy earlier they are pretty tired and honestly just going through the motions at this point. They'll whine for a bit, and then they'll be asleep in a big pile within ten minutes.

"Yup. Buffy tells me that you are aware of her status, so I'll just say that I am the same way and that we tend to be the best at using those beasts due to the recoil. It isn't bad, for what it does. But it's harder to handle than you might think when you are downsized and weigh maybe thirty pounds in full armor."

Nodding in acceptance as that actually makes a lot of sense, she moves on.

"Where is Buffy?"

Pointing through the ceiling, Kendra answers.

"Piloting the shuttle. It's pretty boring, so we try to do it in shifts when we are in a position where we can't use the wheels."

Kurin can't argue with that any, flying something this slow would be right up there with watching worms fornicate on the list of things she would desperately want to spend hours of her life doing. Moving the goggles up to her forehead for a moment and looking down at the ground to get her bearings, she groans internally. They are just now after more than two hours getting clear of the city. The good news is that the bedlam that infests the large cities is much less out here. The downside is that she now has a much better idea of how long it is going to take them and she might have estimated low.

"How fast is this thing on the ground?"

Shrugging as she makes her way towards the couches in the living room and motioning her to follow, Kendra answers with a bit of yearning. It seems obvious that the woman isn't any happier about their slow speed than Kurin is.

"Just a bit over seventy on good roads with the rubber tires on. Closer to fifty using these metal monsters we are wearing now. Off-road depends, but if it gets dangerous or starts tossing things around enough that we are forced below thirty or so, we generally just take off and fly until the terrain gets better. Can't afford to break anything while we're hopping dimensions. Let me ask you something. Do you people have a plan to deal with this? Because unless you have something better than a leftover prayer from fifty thousand years ago, I'd be a bit worried at this point if I were you."

Kurin gives her a raised brow and Kendra matches her, completely unconcerned.

"I was listening in on the coms gear while Alex was asking about stuff. So was Buffy. No offense, but it isn't like we really know you at all."

The soldier rolls her eyes and lets out an exasperated sigh. "Yes, I honestly kind of assumed that much. I was more thrown by the stupidity of the question, no offense. If you were listening in, then you know I'm a lieutenant. I'm not sure exactly how the military works where you are from, but around here that means that they tell me nothing but where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing at any given time with the people and equipment I've been given. If they have any kind of plan to see Thessia through this I promise I would be one of the last to know."

Kendra opening up one of her personal Alexis-made endless trail ration bags and placing her artificer enhanced thermos on the coffee table after having it filled with water stops the conversation as Kurin watches with curiosity. Kendra smiles, once again loving the fact that Alexis has built the new ones in such a way that the 'Chill Metal' and 'Heat Metal' system in the truck works on them for ice water and tea. The same setup that keeps the kitchen appliances hot or cold as needed, the air at a comfortable temperature, and helps the exterior to resist damage from temperature extremes is also connected to their water jugs as long as they are within the truck. A switch on the top is pressed to the right completes a simple targeting rune and causes the inner sleeve of metal beyond the insulating vacuum to drop to a temperature something between that of an arctic winter and a vat of liquid nitrogen for about a minute before she flips it back. Kurin stares at it and hears the slosh where there was none before as the girl across from her casually unscrews the lid and sips the now bitterly cold water.

"You know, I'm pretty sure that some nerd here on Thessia could make a mug that does something similar, but just for the record, that was magic too, wasn't it?"

Kendra laughs and explains a bit about the truck's temperature control systems. Then she sighs.

"Yeah, it's a pretty sweet setup. She's been working on this truck for more than ten years now. It's her baby. None of us ever really expected to live this long doing what we do, so she wanted something we could take on vacation when we needed to get away from things. It ended up being a combat vehicle mostly by accident. Our lives are, well..." She fades away a bit and then looks at Kurin apologetically as a particularly loud explosion from outside makes a hollow 'WOMP!!' sound.

"Well, normally I'd call what we do dangerous. But considering what you are dealing with here I may need to reconsider my terms."

Kurin slides off the goggles again and glances around. There's only one Reaper ship anywhere near them now that they are away from the city. But it just blew up one of the primary Element Zero refineries on the continent.

They have stores of this incredible substance used to power almost everything including space flight that are vast, Thessia being gifted with a lot of it. But the knowledge that now, while they are in a fight for their lives, what they have is all they will be getting for a while unless the other refineries managed to avoid a similar fate is not a happy thing to consider. Kurin lowers the goggles again and tiredly lets her head fall back onto the delightfully decadent cushion that forms the back of the love seat that she is sitting on.

"I wish you four had shown up a hundred years ago. Considering the life spans you humans have, I could have shown you all a pretty good time for a while and you would have missed this altogether. Now you're stuck here with us. You seem like good people, I'm sorry you had to be involved."

Kendra glances at Willow, who is sitting back at her desk working like a fiend. Pursing her lips just slightly, Kendra decides that if Alex hasn't mentioned that they are two days and twenty-two hours from skipping town, she certainly isn't going to. Before she has a chance to change the subject, however, Kurin does it for her.

"So, what did you do before? I mean, this thing may not be fast, but it's probably one of the most heavily armed things in its weight class I've ever seen. Even ignoring the abilities of the occupants."

Deciding that nothing bad could really come from answering this one, she does so.

"Our home has places in it that have easy access to other dimensions. Most of those dimensions are not very nice places, and they tend to attract visitors of an unsavory nature. We call them a 'Hellmouth' once we get them located. The lot of us and the rest of our crew back home are the ones that keep those mouths shut and deal with the demons and their spawn that try to open them or prey on humanity. It isn't the most fun job ever, but it keeps the world turning."

Smirking, Kurin nods. "So you're monster hunters. I guess that mob we just dealt with was nothing unusual for you then?"

Kendra takes another sip. "Well, it wasn't a standard, no. But we've definitely dealt with worse before. Honestly, most of the time we can't use the truck like that when we are at home. There's this weird disconnect where the average person doesn't really know anything about the supernatural so we try to let them sleep better at night and handle things in a much more low-key manner whenever we can. Sometimes we don't have a choice and pull out the stops but it isn't our first option."

The blue alien quirks an eyebrow. "So you fight a secret war against monsters that can get as bad as these damn husks and your people don't notice? Is the average IQ in the single-digit range or something?"

Shaking her head as she giggles out loud, Kendra can't help her smirk.

"My brain wants to deny that, but my heart is all like 'your mouth to god's ears.'"

The two share a chuckle that is cut off when Willow calls out to anybody on the headsets.

"Hey everybody, I think I have a decent working connection to their communications setup now. It's really bad though, I think they are losing satellites faster than they can reroute at this point. Unless they have some kind of underground com lines, they are probably going to largely be experiencing a global communication blackout within the next few days and it'll be really sketchy right up until it fails."

Alexis' voice comes floating back over the headsets and through the two open doors to the front of the truck, where she is sitting back in the cab.

"Any luck on the translator?"

Willow looks largely irritated. "No. I think I could maybe use my system to run one if I had one, maybe set up a shell or something to run it in assuming that the local humans actually speak English and the Asari bother to have that in their translator. But without the knowledge of the language or the software trying to figure it out could take weeks. And it'd still probably be wrong."

Kurin laughs. "It'll be there. I am wearing one, actually. I assumed that you already had a working translator."

Alex steps into the room from the front at this time.

"We do, but it doesn't work through tech. It's a magic effect that has to be face to face, basically. I've been tossing around ways to make it more versatile, but so far I haven't had any luck."

Willow looks up curiously. "Why are you working on that? Not that it's a bad idea, it's just this is legitimately the first time we would have ever used it anyway. I didn't think it was even on the radar."

Alex shrugs. "Dawn and Joyce's adopted kids wanted to have something like that for watching foreign films without the subtitles and asked me about it maybe six years ago? Sometime right after she graduated high school. We've been playing around with ideas now and again in our free time ever since." She smirks. "I am actually pretty sure they wanted to use it to watch hentai, to be honest. But they were eighteen when they brought it up so I just said I'd tinker with it and didn't bother to call bullshit on their claims of German existential films or whatever."

Buffy's exasperated voice ghosts down on the headsets, and only Kurin can't hear it.

"I still can't believe they are in a three-way relationship. How in the hell did that happen?"

Kurin doesn't understand the sudden grins on everybody else in the room but decides to ignore it and press on.

"If you like, I can get you a spare Omni-tool. We had a few and I tossed them in the back when we got on board. I might not be able to let you keep it, it's military-grade and they are pretty obnoxious about seeing to it those don't get out. But I can probably help you get the language software off of it."

Willow nods her head with an ear-to-ear smile. "Absolutely, somewhere to start would be great." Then she frowns. "What's an Omni-tool?"

Standing up, Kurin activates her own. Immediately an orange glow encases her left arm from the elbow down and she starts showing off some of the features in the strange light-based construct she is now wearing. Included is the computer, sensor, and a communication scrambling as well as translating system that augments her headset coms gear.

Then she engages the defensive blade it can create as a hard light construct. This gets Kendra's attention immediately. When she is getting into its ability to use basic building block materials to fabricate on the spot repairs and upgrades to equipment, Willow is looking at the device with undisguised lust in her eyes and even Alex who is still to this day a bit of a Luddite when it comes to the high tech world can't deny the obvious utility inherent in the device.

"There are different models, of course. Mine is a pretty basic combat version. Mostly built to be reliable enough to risk in the field and still be a viable tool. The most impressive ones tend to get issued to combat engineers. A good combat engineer and a modded Omni-tool with all the specs on it can turn a pile of basic resources into an aircar, given enough time and motivation. Or at least, that's what I've been told. In my line of work I mostly use it for the sensors and the communications mod systems."

Kendra looks confused. "Not the blade?"

Kurin shrugs as she walks toward the cargo area. "I've used the thing, but I'll shoot or try my biotics first. The hard light blade is pretty much the last resort. Most of the time I'll put 'running away' as a better option than getting that thing out."

She disappears into the cargo area and a few minutes later is coming back through the door carrying two of the devices. Walking over to Willow's desk area, she observes the redhead curiously as she works feverishly at what she is doing.

"Do you mind if I run a scan on your setup? There might be an easy way to do this if I can access your setup using a wireless system."

Willow swivels her chair around ad stands. "Be my guest. Just be nice, it's the best I can put together with the technology we have back home and I know it won't measure up to your stuff."

Offering a wry smile, the blue woman brings up her Omni-tool and fiddles with a few things, then waves her hand over the system and peers intently at the readings for about a minute.

"Huh. Well, I guess it's just as well that I checked. I'm not going to be able to help with this after all. The translation program is one big gooey mess that covers all the known languages and dialects that we've come across in the galaxy. It's a little over eight hundred terabytes. There's pretty much no way we could ever condense it down to anything you could store on this machine, much less run it. On the plus side, even if the Matriarchs decide you can't have any Omni-tools for whatever reason I can spend a bit at the store on base and offer you a hell of an upgrade." She looks pained for a moment. "Worst case scenario, there are probably a lot of systems laying around without owners anymore that you could have for the price of being willing to risk your life to go pick them up. Normally I would never condone looting, but considering the number of husks you'd probably have to put down to make it happen it almost seems like it would be worth it to let you go a little nuts."

Willow, looking a combination of annoyed and hopeful, sits back down.

"Do you mind if I take a look at one of those? Why did you bring two, anyway?"

Placing them on the desk, Kurin shrugs. "I about half expected we'd have to tear one apart to patch into your system and I was planning to use the other for the transfer so mine wasn't tied up. Both my engineers are dead, so I'd have had to do it the dumb grunt way."

Willow looks down. "Sorry. I didn't know."

Kurin sits and leans back, closing her eyes for a moment. "No way you could. It's alright."

Then she cocks her head to one side and puts her hand to her ear in that universal 'I'm on a call.' kind of way.

"Yes, Ma'am. I am still telling you I have other dimensional travelers with me and we are en route to Danateda."

There is a moment of silence in the room and the rest of its occupants settle in to listen to half a conversation.

"No, Ma'am. I am not in any way kidding. They popped in out of nowhere and saved what was left of my platoon from being overrun. We're only alive because they showed up and helped us deal with something like a thousand or more husks."

"Their tech is a mix of low and beyond even the Solarian special task groups, as near as I can tell. Their medical abilities and stealth technology are beyond anything I've ever seen or heard of, but their computers and such are thousands of years behind ours."

Willow looks crushed by that assessment but doesn't argue the point.

"Yes Ma'am, I know what my orders were. But it's a first contact situation and the protocols for that kind of thing are well documented. Besides, we were done anyway and about to all be killed."

She closes her eyes.

"They look human, more or less."

The lieutenant at this point is sinking into the cushions of her spot on the love seat in what is obviously becoming something between despair and simmering rage.

"Yes, I did consider that they might have been part of the Specter's group. They didn't even know what a Specter was."

There is a longer than normal pause, and she takes the goggles off for a few moments and cross-references what she sees with the data on her Omni-tool.

"We are currently within about a mile of the two hundred and tenth pillar of the Hibindo aqueduct."

She then rattles off some coordinates that mean nothing to the earthlings. There is another pause.

"Yes, Ma'am. We'll meet you there."

After shutting off her radio, she looks at Alex and while she is still pretty angry the look on her face is more apologetic than anything else.

"She wants to meet us at the pillar. To get me and mine back into the fight and to see who you are. Apparently, she isn't willing to bring you to the base until she's sure you're not compromised somehow or some other kind of enemy."

Alex just shrugs. Given the state of things, she kinda figured that was a given.

"Just tell us where to go."

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 5
Chatting With The On-High.

>>>>

"I have to say, as aqueducts go this thing is unbelievably impressive. What is this thing, a good thousand feet high? And what is this red stone?" Alex asks as she is getting out to stretch a bit while the soldiers are getting their stuff together. The vehicle and themselves being visible again for the first time in a couple of hours has allowed the poor dears to finally take stock a bit.

Kurin nods as she hands the chokers back as she and her soldiers had returned to normal size. "It isn't actually in use anymore. This was originally built ten thousand years ago to bring fresh water to various places along the coast. These days they just use pumps and underground pipes, but they left the aqueduct here as a reminder of where we came from, I guess. And it isn't really stone I don't think. Not an engineer, but I would bet that it's an iron heavy composite they used to use a lot in the old days. Something like the concrete they used to use on human worlds, but it holds up a bit better as long as the coating keeping the water out holds up."

She grumbles under her breath. "I bet it's only still here because those damn Reapers don't consider it worth destroying."

As the last of the soldiers and Buffy exit the truck a pair of some manner of troop carriers descend on their position. The two wingless aircraft look like nothing so much as cordless electric shavers with thrusters and appear to be about sixty feet long. Alex and Buffy do find that they are impressed though, at least with the fact that using only technology they've managed to make something that flies almost as quietly as the truck does. Quite the trick considering the truck cheats using magic and extra-dimensional spaces. A slight whine in the air is all that is clearly audible from the two machines.

Once the first craft lands and disgorges a twenty soldier troop, the second lowers itself much more sedately and does the same. This time though, the soldiers are followed by a twenty-first. The final one however is an entirely different kettle of fish.

For one, she actually manages to look older. The Asari they have seen so far are remarkably similar in appearance, differing mostly in slight changes to their facial structure and markings. Regardless of their actual ages though, they appear to a human perspective to be in their late teens to their mid-twenties. This woman seems to be more akin to an incredibly well-kept forty. Not so much in her features Alex decides, which are not all that dissimilar to the rest. But in the expression on her face, and the way she carries herself. The way her body has a more mature feel to it. Like as though those breasts had actually seen use, and the one who suckled is probably old enough to have raised their own. Not a motherly person, she decides based on appearances and her expression. Something closer to a career executive that probably would have employed a nanny at the earliest opportunity.

She also doesn't look particularly happy.

"Lieutenant. These are your dimensional travelers? The reason you abandoned your post? They look like human children."

Buffy and Alex look at each other and grin. Poking at the runes on their forearm in just the proper sequence activates the tattoos they still have. Originally it was required that they actually touch the things to make it work, but when the danger level of the environments they were visiting got to be a bit much for them to be removing armor for any old reason or having access ports in the armor they were wearing, a workaround was found and implemented. Twisting a bit and hearing her back rattle out a few satisfying pops as she is full size for the first time in more than a day, Buffy quirks a grin at the panicked look on the faces of the new arrivals and flashes a bit of concern at the number of clicking sounds that are coming from the weapons that are now pointed at them. The blonde manages a laugh though as she responds.

"Sorry. Not a child, it's just more convenient to be small while traveling."

Alex almost laughs at the expression of bemused disbelief on the face of their commander.

"I'm Alexis. This is Buffy. Pleased to meet you." She then extends a hand.

Clasping hand with Alex, and then Buffy in turn, the woman responds.

"Ampeela. Charmed, I'm sure." She backs up a few steps and crosses her arms. "So what is this about them being from another dimension? They look like fairly typical human stock to me, even given their apparent ability to alter their size."

Kurin nods, her back ramrod straight. "That isn't an ability of theirs, that is the effect of things they possess and use. They loaned us four of them so myself and three others could be more comfortable on the trip here."

This gets an eyebrow raise. "And you can offer a demonstration of this?"

Kurin glances over at Alex, who shrugs. Digging into her satchel she pulls one of the chokers out and tosses it over. A few seconds later Kurin is once again just under three feet tall and is now giving her report in a rather squeaky voice that brings the rest of the soldiers that hadn't heard it before to at least a minimal amount of mirth, their smirks betraying them.

"I wore this for the entirety of the trip here. It seemed to have no adverse effects on me and made the accommodations in their transport very comfortable. Additionally, you should take a look at the reports that my medics put together for you." She offers a pint-sized smirk of her own. "It makes for interesting reading." Her smirk goes to a full-blown smile and she becomes full-sized again.

Then she grows, letting out a cackle of excitement as she suddenly shoots up to just under twelve feet tall and looks down on her fellow soldiers with a raised eyebrow as if daring them to mock her again. The whole thing might have been more impressive had she not then immediately lost her balance and fallen over. Alex can't help it and giggles while Buffy laughs and helps her back up.

"If it makes you feel any better, the first time I did that I managed to almost take out a wall in Alex's shop. Not my finest moment ever."

Kurin makes it a point to stand and brush herself off before becoming normal-sized again and removing the choker, somewhat reluctantly. Her commander seems to have made a decision as she flips through the medical reports.

"I believe your point is made. Kurin, if you would be willing to travel with them and guide them to the base? Use the third entrance, if you please. The rest of you get on the transports. I can see no reason to have you spend an additional two hours getting back when I can just as easily reassign you now."

Kurin looks at her in something between shock and dismay.

"I'm losing my command?"

The commander looks at her and for a change of pace actually looks sympathetic, her tone becoming softer, as though she is breaking bad news to a loved one.

"You've already lost your command. The remainder of your troops will have to be attached to other companies anyway, as under strength as your force is. What I am offering you is a chance to be these human's guide and liaison until something better turns up. If you would rather not, I am sure I can find someone else."

Kurin looks shocked for a moment as she rolls it around in her head and eventually she is forced to the same conclusion as her elder. Straightening up, she salutes.

"No Ma'am. I can see wisdom when it's pointed out and I thank you for the opportunity."

Ampeela nods, neither smug nor gloating now that her point has been made and the veracity of Kurin's claims concerning her new friends have been tentatively verified. They don't tarry, as the war rages on and the sound of explosions, while distant, are still a counterpoint to everything discussed.

Back in the air with the stealth system once again engaged it is a fairly quiet ride to the base. While she can see the reasoning, it doesn't make losing her command any more palatable a meal to chew on during the trip, and in deference to her obvious black mood, Alexis mostly leaves her alone as they sit in the front.

Eventually, they do finally make the final approach, though the seaside cliff that she directs them to and the barely above the waterline line cave that they end up slowly flying through bears little resemblance to any kind of base they are familiar with. At Alex's curious look, the lieutenant answers the obvious question.

"This particular installation was built during the Rachni wars. A race of, well, giant bugs I guess. They caused a lot of problems a long time ago and high command wanted a few installations that were off the beaten path in case the worst happened. This is one of them. Coming in handy now, I must say. Even if the Reapers find it, it'll take them months to crack it."

The multiple checkpoints they pass through with their enormous metal doors seem to be verifying her words. Eventually, however, they are directed to an enormous cavern used as a motor pool where they park the beast next to the two transports they saw earlier. Alex keys up her microphone. "I have to go make nice. Looking for a Slayer escort, who wants the honor?"

Kendra is the first to respond.

"I'm happy to go if you need me, but honestly I am getting more than a little tired."

Buffy frowns from where she is in the kitchen once again feeding puppies.

"I think we all are. It's been a long couple of days and capping it with this missed jump and a fight was not the best way to unwind. Any chance they'd just let us get some sleep before we have to hobnob?"

Willow rolls her eyes. "The last couple of days were long because we were partying with our doppelgangers. Well except yours, Kendra."

The reminder that her death had been a little more permanent in another reality is not exactly what she was hoping to hear about again. Not to be daunted for long by such things though, Kendra retakes the floor though she is whispering this time.

"Honestly, we only have to kill another two days and twenty hours. Any reason we shouldn't spend the next ten of it sleeping? This cavern they built is what, about eighty feet high? I say we fly to the ceiling, set the immovable rods, and catch some shut-eye. If Kurin wants to get out first, we let her."

Alex shakes her head, annoyance clear in her tone. "C'mon guys. We have to at least talk to these people a bit first. Do I have to go it alone?"

Kurin gives her an odd look, this being the first of the debate that she has really heard. With a disgruntled air about her, Alex flicks off her microphone for a moment and speaks in a rather deadpan and yet irked tone. "We spent the last two days partying and showed up here to get in a fight and then spend two hours on a really boring flight through a war zone or playing with the puppies. They are all ready to go take a nap."

Having been in such a condition before herself, the lieutenant laughs out loud.

Buffy's voice is annoyed, but understanding. "Oh, all right. I'll meet you in cargo. Kendra, want to fly us up like you suggested after we leave? We can just fly back up there once we're done chatting."

Her agreement is quick, and a few minutes later Alex and Buffy are being brought into a well-lit area of finished walls and aesthetically pleasing hanging video screens that seem to be taking the place of windows as they show scenes of the outdoors. Kurin brings them to a room that is built something like what one might expect a modern roman emperor to use while holding court. There is a very impressively dressed Asari sitting on a raised platform looking down on everyone else, surrounded by video screens. The wall behind her has a rotating holographic model of the planet jutting out of it, displaying data about the current state of things.

The platform isn't raised far, maybe only four and a half feet. But even still, Buffy finds it annoying and even Alex rolls her eyes at the obvious attempt at psychological trickery. Considering the entire room is a thirty by fifty-foot area the idea that she would need a platform like that to be heard is pretty ridiculous, and to be seen a single step would do it. Almost as ridiculous to them as the honor guard of six armed soldiers that are looking at them with maybe just a little more suspicion than is completely comfortable. The commander they met at the aqueduct is already there and performs the introductions.

"Matriarch Mileeni. I introduce you to the claimed extra-dimensional humans and the platoon leader who first encountered them. They are Alexis and Buffy, accompanied by Lieutenant Kurin." She then steps forward and presses a few glowing bits on her Omni-tool, causing the Matriarch's screens to light up. "These are some things they have done since their arrival and the transcripts of the conversations that Lieutenant Kurin was involved in."

Mileeni nods politely and skims the documents, the speed at which she does so makes Alexis think there is some small bit of theater involved here as she finds it likely the woman had actually already read them. After a few moments, she nods to herself and turns back to face her guests.

"Alexis. Buffy. As you have been told, I am Matriarch Mileeni, though you may dispense with the formal address considering the circumstances. Having read now the reports I have been given, I have many questions. But one above all seems most important."

She pauses in thought for a few seconds, as though trying to decide what the best way to continue is. Her eyes close for a moment as she ponders something, some decision that is obviously weighing heavily on her. Finally, they slowly open again.

"How soon will you be leaving our dimension, and would you be willing to take a small number of my people with you to help guarantee the survival of the species?"

Kurin blinks twice and turns to Alexis who has the grace to look at least slightly ashamed at not having brought it up before.

"Our system takes seventy-two hours to recharge, and we still have most of that to go. As for taking a few of your people with us, I'm willing. But it is going to be incredibly uncomfortable and given the lives we lead I can't promise they will be any safer with us, really."

At the Matriarch's look of shock, Buffy nods.

"Two dimensions ago we popped into one where the sky was on fire and we were hit by lightning six times in a minute when we first arrived. And that's not even counting the weird dragon thing that tried to eat us before we could jump out."

Mileeni nods, her face grave. "'Interesting times, may you experience them.' I believe that is the human expression. The Asari have one similar, but we do not consider it a curse. Such turns of phrase are difficult to translate and keep their meaning whole, but I believe that 'all paths to the Goddess inflict the proper amount of strife' would be close."

Alex nods thoughtfully. "The implication being that whatever evils befall you only help you in the next life, I guess?"

She nods, pleased that this human has understood.

"In truth, Miss Alexis, I have spoken briefly with the ruling council when your supposed circumstances were made clear to me. Given the danger we are in, any chance to save our species is being looked at and considered. By all accounts, these Reapers have done what they are currently doing to us for millions of years. The likelihood of us being the ones to break the cycle, therefore, seems abysmally small and the chances that a few of our people more or less would have a significant impact is negligible."

She offers a slightly upturned lip that on a creature with lesser poise might be called a snarl. Even with the calm demeanor she maintains, her tone and delivery somehow announce to them all that she is career military and has been for most of eight hundred years.

"At least, this cycle. If we can get some of our people out and let them prosper elsewhere with the knowledge that we have accumulated then we could, in theory, have a resurgence in a few thousand years. We can return and rebuild, and see to it that the next cycle will be the last. For when the Reapers deign to come back next time, we will endeavor to be ready for them."

Alexis can't help but be a little awed by the concept of thinking quite that far in advance. But then she reminds herself, this is apparently going to happen again in only about fifty Asari lifetimes from now. It would make sense that they would plan pretty far ahead given how long they live.

Alexis takes a couple of steps backward and leans against the door jam, her arms crossed and head tilted as she considers.

"I would need to finish building a beacon for the return trip and a spare communicator so we could keep in touch. That would take about two weeks using my... Fabricators, I guess. Given the way your people reproduce I guess this is actually somewhat viable since you don't really need a huge gene pool to start with like most other species would as long as you have someone around to, um, bond with? Sorry. I don't really get how that all works."

The Matriarch seems to find Alexis' discomfort humorous if her upturned lips are any indicator.

"It has many terms associated with it. 'Melding' is the most common. As for understanding it, even most Asari do not claim to truly understand the joining of two souls to make a third except in the most sterile and clinical of ways. Be not concerned, there has been no offense."

Alexis nods. "I imagine I could probably take a couple before things started getting pretty unwieldy long term. Besides, my dimension hasn't found any actual space aliens. So your people would need to be kept hidden for a long time. Starting with a small population and letting it build up would probably be for the best. Hopefully, it won't matter and I can just bring them back in a few years when you win."

The tight-lipped attempt at a smile that she receives does more than any amount of after-action reports to convey how likely the Matriarch thinks a win is at this point. Nothing more is said on that, however.

"As you say. We will hold a lottery of sorts to determine who will go if that is acceptable to you?"

Alexis shrugs. "You can for the second slot, for the first we'll take Kurin if she wants to go."

The Matriarch doesn't even bother to respond aside from a raised eyebrow. But that is done so artfully that it contains multiple meanings. Most of which boil down to the most tactfully phrased: "And just who in the fuck died and left you in charge!?" That Alex and Buffy have ever been on the receiving end of.

Which is impressive, Giles has practically earned a Ph.D. in such looks over the years.

The silence stretches for a few seconds before Alexis answers the unspoken question. "We like her, we can get along with her, and we are impressed with her skills. All things which will be necessary if she or anyone else wants to become part of my crew for a length of time. Considering the trouble we are having getting home, she might be part of the crew for a good long while."

The Matriarch sighs. "Very well, Lieutenant. I'll admit I might have chosen a candidate with more higher education than martial skill, but perhaps we can make do with training simulator programs and a wealth of knowledge to peruse. Given what they have said about their lives and the ultimate goal, martial knowledge may well be of high importance regardless. Once you are removed from the current situation it is likely that she will have plenty of time to brush up her skills in other areas anyway." She turns to face Kurin directly and her voice falls to one of a quiet monotone. "I'll have you know, however, that we will be testing your ability to perform the melding without any... Negative effects on your partner. Before I will allow this."

Buffy looks at the now deeply embarrassed Kurin in confusion. "Negative effects? What, like sexually transmitted diseases? Those can cross species? I mean like, interstellarly and stuff?"

The lieutenant shakes her head and licks her lips. "No... What the Matriarch is alluding to but not saying aloud is that there is an incredibly rare birth defect among my people that can cause the melding to go awry."

She looks at Alex directly. "Like I told you before, I'm not a doctor but I can lay out the basics for you. When Asari perform the meld so that we can borrow what we need from our partner, there is a very intense period when our mind is fiddling about with our partner's nervous system and learning everything it can so it can use what it finds to give our offspring the best possible chance. It is done instinctively and the process is quite pleasurable for both parties. Our version of sex. This birth defect causes the nervous system of the partner to burn out during the coupling. It kills their partners, uses them up, and leaves a corpse behind. It isn't something we make a point to advertise to the galaxy."

Then she looks up at the Matriarch directly. "The knowledge that one is in your family will follow an Asari for their entire lives, and I had a great, great aunt that was one. Forced to live out her days in a monastery colony. She may still be there, for all I know. Assuming the Reapers haven't destroyed it like they have everything else."

Then she turns back to Alex. "But that all said, it is an issue that only ever crops up between purebloods. Asari that only mate with other Asari. And that hasn't been my family for two generations now."

Buffy looks at her quizzically. "So what was your father then?" Then she holds a hand up. "If it's not too personal. I don't know what's appropriate here."

With a roll of her eyes and trying to keep from letting her inner turmoil out, she answers.

"An Elcor my mother served with defending one of the outer colonies from Batarian slavers during a joint operation of Citadel species."

The Matriarch's eyes close halfway in understanding. "You have my sympathies, Lieutenant."

Alex raises an eyebrow. "Something wrong with Elcor?"

Kurin shakes her head. "No. They are intelligent quadrupeds and according to my mother, great warriors using virtual-intelligence driven automatic cannons that they strap to their backs. I've spent years with my dad between assignments, he's a wonderful man and father. The Elcor are from a high-gravity world. Very, very strong and really big. But their homeworld was hit early, and hard. And my father is old, for an Elcor. The chances he is still alive are fairly slim."

There is silence for a minute as everyone digests that and considers what to say next. Finally, the Matriarch steps back in to guide things.

"We will need access to your craft to try to set up what we can to give our people the best possible chance. When would be a good time to inspect it and try to figure out what you will be capable of taking with you?"

Nodding as she considers the question and then running a quick mental tally, Alex answers.

"I can offer you cargo space equal to four cylinders six feet across and ten feet deep, and one bedroom and bath. Though be advised that the bedroom is quite small. Anyone using it will need to be equipped with one of my tools to be the right size to fit in it, and even with that they might be either sharing a bunk or time sharing the bed. Really not sure if I am going to be able to shoehorn another bunk in there. Also, if your society has any taboos against adding markings to your bodies, it might be worth screening out anybody that doesn't like the idea. If they are going to be traveling with us I will probably go ahead and hook them up with the standard lineup of augmentations we all use. Can't see any reason they wouldn't work. They look like tattoos."

Smiling at what was far more than she had expected, Mileeni inclines her head in acceptance.

"I note that you have not yet asked for payment. While from one point of view I find this very encouraging I find myself curious as to why?"

Alex and Buffy share a look and Buffy responds, keeping her voice as light as possible.

"Honestly, this is pretty standard for us. We kinda have a saving people thing."

>>>>

Somewhere else in the multiverse, a man with a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead sneezes suddenly and has no idea why.

>>>>

Back on Thessia, Alex continues with a smirk. "Besides, my tech and coms specialist would probably stake us out for scavengers to nibble on if we turned down a chance to be exposed to such high-tech stuff."

Buffy laughs at this, and even Kurin gets a chuckle out of it as she is the only Asari to have met that notable. Alexis continues.

"To be honest, we are both really tired. It's been a long few days for us. Would it be acceptable to you all if we were to go to bed and we can start solidifying plans in say, ten hours? I feel I should run this by the rest of my crew anyway before we make any promises." She offers an apologetic shrug. "I don't expect there to be any issues, but it's better to find out first."

Mileeni rubs her own eyes in a manner that would suggest that she herself had passed exhaustion some time ago.

"That will be acceptable. I will send my engineers to you then."

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 6
Holes.

>>>>

When Kurin tries to escort them to some sleeping quarters on base, she gets stopped by Buffy part of the way there.

"Where are we going?"

Offering a quizzical look, Kurin motions down the corridor. "The barracks. You said you wanted to get some sleep. I figured I would drop you off and then go get the rest of your crew."

Buffy can't hide the slight smirk that crosses her lips while Alexis giggles and responds. "Yeah. I think we'll be fine in the truck, thanks. You can just take us back there."

Kurin shakes her head. "Not the best idea, honestly. It's the motor pool. It's loud in there most of the time, especially at times like this when they are working on things. I mean, nobody is going to stop you from sleeping there if you really want to, but I'm not sure how much sleep you'll actually get."

Buffy and Alex share a look and then both start laughing. Buffy wipes a tear from her eye and shakes her head. "Wow. I am getting tired, this really isn't that funny. The noise of the mechanics and whatever isn't going to bother us. We have a noise cancellation system built into the sleeping quarters. We can set a timer and be up when you need us, no problem."

Kurin looks confused. "Noise cancellation? You mean soundproofing?"

Alexis shrugs. "After a fashion. It's actually just more magic. The same thing we use to keep our flying attack drones from being heard while they are in the air, actually. I'll put a couple of my automatons on the lookout to wake me up if anything happens or your people need anything urgent, but otherwise, we'll be distraction-free for about the next eight hours."

Buffy snorts at the claim of 'distraction free' and makes a kissy face while rolling her eyes.

Alexis slaps her shoulder. "It's not my fault that you have the worst luck with men that the world has ever seen. I'd have let you bring a boyfriend if you could find and keep a decent one."

"Hey, I've found some good men!" Buffy complains in response.

Alexis smiles just slightly at that and then sighs sadly. It's true of course. She has found some good guys. It's finding ones that meet the triple requirements that she is struggling with. Alive when she finds them. Willing to stay when they learn about her life. Finally, and most depressing to think about: Able to thrive in the environment that her calling creates. So far the closest she's managed to get to a boyfriend that meets all three is still Riley, and that poor sod had been reassigned to the Cleveland Hellmouth after the third time in a year he'd been nearly killed. That was almost six years ago, and the rumor was that the move was at his request.

There were tearful and melodramatic moments aplenty during which Riley had offered to have her stay with him on the new site, but he didn't push too hard for it and Buffy didn't either. The writing was kind of on the wall.

He'd settle down and take a desk job in the next few years, preferably well before he hit thirty-five which was only about four years away now and eight at the time, or he'd be dead relatively soon. Combine that with the fact that while he was able to deal with not being a Slayer and working with them, he just didn't quite have it in him to sit safely at a desk and send women half his size into the jaws of death. The idea of it was destroying him, and in the end, Henry had realized what was going on and preempted his fast-approaching demise by making him an apprentice of sorts and partnering him with Wyndam-Pryce on the other, lesser, North American Hellmouth where things rarely required the assistance of a Slayer.

Since he'd left, Buffy had gone through what can only be described as a string of mistakes best left forgotten. Finally, after a few seconds of walking in the new direction, Alex nods.

"You have. But there wasn't one around now to bring, and that's not mine or Willow's fault is it?"

Somewhat petulantly, Buffy kicks at the ground while she walks along.

"No..."

The conversation is stopped at this point as Kurin makes a disgruntled noise and looks around, having just reached the motor pool again and noticed that the truck is missing.

"I can't believe they screwed with your truck, Alex. I'm so sorry. Wait here a minute and I'll find out what those idiots in fabricating have done with it and bring it back..."

She stops talking as she follows Buffy's pointed finger towards the ceiling and there the truck sits. Hanging motionless and silent in the air with a few Asari eighty feet under it running scans and desperately trying to figure out how this was happening.

Kurin laughs. "I take it you didn't want to have to worry about solicitors?"

Buffy chuckles and Alex smirks and tips her head.

"More or less. Kendra's idea, actually. She was raised a bit differently and whenever possible she likes peace to meditate and sleep. We can accommodate easy enough, but I think she was worried about being disturbed by people getting tours all the time while we were trying to get our shut-eye."

Kurin can't help but agree that they would get their privacy up there.

"I know you can fly, Alex. I take it you all can then?"

Buffy nods. "It's built into the armor." She frowns. "Barely faster than the truck, unfortunately. But it gets the job done."

Alex sighs the sigh of someone that had dealt with the same complaint over, and over, and over again.

"I'm sorry that the miracle of human flight is so unsatisfactory for you. Please address your future complaints to PO Box Kiss My Ass in Up Yours With a Rubber Hose. I've told you a thousand times, I'm working on it. You seem to think that spell design is easy peasy. Besides, you all have Phantom Steed summoning built into your armor now, and that thing can haul you at a pretty good clip through the air."

She grumbles under her breath. "If you'd ever use the things. Took me three and a half months of build time for each of you, you'd think you could at least pretend once in a while."

Buffy scoffs exasperatedly. "It takes ten minutes to summon the thing. Ten minutes! When while I'm in combat am I going to find the time to spend ten minutes whistling up Seabiscuit!?"

Alex hangs her head and rubs her eyes. "I still can't believe you named that thing."

Buffy shrugs as she activates her own flight and starts heading up towards the truck. "Of course I named it. Just be glad Kendra talked me out of my first choice."

Alex starts her own flight. "Oh really. And what might that have been?"

Buffy glances down, mischief and just a hint of lust dancing on her lips. "Maguire. She wouldn't let me use 'Spiderhorse' either. Sad day."

Alexis groans in disgust and is about to continue the argument when Kurin speaks up from below.

"Hey! I need to stay with you, I'm your liaison."

Buffy and Alex look at each other and then back down. Alex has an apologetic but firm tone.

"Not trying to cause trouble for you or anything, but the four of us need to have a pretty serious conversation about what's going on here with you and the plus one. And I kinda think we need to have it alone. How about you start the clingy escort thing when we wake up?"

Kurin looks a little hurt, but nods in understanding. "Alright, have it your way. I'll be back in ten hours."

With that, she walks back down the tunnel towards the barracks to get herself some sleep. The next few days are likely to be fairly busy.

Opening the three-foot-tall door that sits inset in the massive back doors of the truck, the two get in, lock up, and head towards the living area where they find Kendra and Willow both playing with the puppies for a change. Pretty obviously trying to wear them out, get them fed, and put them to sleep so they can get at least four hours of shut-eye themselves before somebody will have to come back down and deal with them again.

While the Dedicated Wrights can take care of them in a pinch, they were told that it is best to spend as much time as possible with them directly so the imprint will be stronger as they grow up. Buffy and Alex join them, and a half-hour later they meet in the living room and speak in hushed tones so as not to keep the furballs awake. After explaining the Asari's request, Alex opens the floor to debate. Willow is the first to speak after that point.

"Well, I guess we could take the stand that it isn't our problem but honestly that seems really horrible. I don't have any problem with it. But also, something that is becoming really obvious to me is that a lot of whatever they bring with them is going to be worthless after a while."

Kendra raises an eyebrow. "And why's that?"

Willow shrugs. "They've integrated this Element Zero stuff into everything. Even those Omni-tools she showed us. I don't think the stuff can even be found on earth, so once the supplies they bring with them are worn out or whatever, it's going to be all over but the crying as far as that goes."

Buffy purses her lips in a frown. "How much do they need? I mean for little stuff. If we filled a hole with it, would that be enough to get them through? I mean, they're talking about coming back here after what, a thousand years maybe? A long time for us, but not so much for them. And we could maybe come back and get more if they need it. I guess."

Alex makes a wavy motion with her hand. "Maybe? As long as we can still contact them with the communicator I am building, I am okay with it. But I have to say, not really excited about appearing here and showing up just in time to suck one of those Reaper blasts. I'd really rather know what's on the other side first."

Willow nods slowly. "We could scry the location I guess."

Alex shakes her head. "The range on those blasts is probably measured in hundreds of miles. The viewing range on scry is measured in tens of feet. There's no way."

There is silence for a few seconds, then Buffy speaks. "So they won't be coming back after all?"

Alex purses her lips for a moment, considering. "If they want to, they can. I don't have any kind of huge problem with it honestly. I'm just not sure I am thrilled with the idea of doing supply runs or giving them the impression that I am willing to bounce back and forth whenever. That's all. But real quick here, before we all fall over and go to sleep. We are all okay with bringing a pair of actual, for real and true aliens back with us?"

The hesitant nods all around are followed up by Kendra's final words on it.

"Honestly, it probably won't even be much of a problem. Hats of disguise are pretty cheap to make, all things considered. Though since they'll be using it constantly it might be worth it to finally figure out the tattoo for that one."

Alex slowly nods, now deep in thought as to how exactly she'd pull that off.

Ten minutes later after making it to their beds, they join the puppies in slumber.

>>>>

She awakens to an insistent tapping on her shoulder. After a few seconds of this, she begrudgingly allows an eye to slide open and blinks at the pixie that has awakened her. She's named them after the color of the hardhats they wear, and this particular one is...

"Purple. Time to get up already?"

The mute creature nods her head yes while maintaining the same smile and bright disposition they usually have. Then it leans down and softly, almost reverently, kisses the end of Alex's nose.

Theoretically, Alexis knows she must have screwed up somewhere fundamentally when creating the homunculus. All of them, really. Because they aren't supposed to have this much free will and expression. But whatever she did wrong she isn't in any kind of big hurry to try to fix it and so far hasn't even bothered to look into exactly how she got it wrong in the first place.

Turning slightly to the side, she can see that Willow has already gotten up. They share the same bed most of the time, and nothing changes when they are on the truck except that the bunk is small enough that even at three feet tall it is barely big enough to hold the both of them. Enforced snuggling while in bodies that have a power to weight ratio so high that they legitimately don't care. Sometimes she genuinely believes that the tiny bed they share is her favorite part of the whole vehicle.

Getting out of bed and staggering to the bathroom that is all of three feet away takes a full minute simply because of how reluctant she actually is to get out of bed. That dashed hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be the time that her bladder will spontaneously empty.

But no, not so much.

After checking the other rooms and finding that she is the last to wake up, she flips off the Silence spell on the bedrooms via the switch at the top of the stairs and is instantly attacked by a wall of noise that startles her back to full wakefulness.

Kurin wasn't lying, from where she is standing now she can hear three loud arguments somewhere far below on the tarmac and no less than eight distinct tool tones welding, cutting, and grinding away at something or other. They are far enough removed and behind thick enough plate to make it easy enough to speak to each other though. Far closer than the tools of construction and destruction she can hear the other three in the living area chatting about their current situation. Buffy is the one currently speaking and is trying to be conciliatory as she does.

You can always tell when she tries that because in spite of her best efforts it always manages to sound somewhat condescending.

"I know it sucks Willow, but you and Alex always share a room anyway. Honestly, where else were we going to put them? We have one room that is usually empty and that's where they're going to go. Heck, Alex already brought it up to their boss lady even."

There is silence for a few seconds. Then as Alex is entering the kitchen proper over the doggy gate and opening up the field provisions box that is built into the counter, she hears Willow's response.

"Yeah, I know. It just sucks, I use it for personal storage and stuff."

Alex pours the milk on some cold cereal and yes, getting a magical field provisions box designed in the middle ages to create a modern sugary cold cereal was a serious pain in the ass, thank you very much. As she does so she offers a response to Willow's latest gripe.

"Actually, I think I might have figured out a way to fix that particular problem. Does everybody remember the shoe storage device and upkeep tool I made for Buffy? Christmas like forever ago? Cleans, maintains, and stores shoes in ten separate little extra-dimensional spaces?"

At their nods, she continues as she precariously tries to make it over the puppy gate to the living room with her bowl of cereal.

"That really wasn't all that complex to put together. Especially if I leave off the cleaning and repair bits and we just use the space. The plan is to start with the bedrooms and make all the drawers and cupboards work like that. Each one would give ten times as much storage that way, and if you are sharing a room you could assign say one through five to one person, and six through ten to the other. Basic switches to decide which you are opening."

They all look thoughtful at this, though Willow adds a slight bit of skepticism to her expression.

"If it's as easy as all that, why didn't you do it forever ago?"

Shrugging, Alex finishes her bite of cereal. "Until now we never really had a need for it. A few weeks of vacation in the summer just doesn't justify that kind of storage space. But now we are honestly pretty much at the mercy of Melinda figuring out how to end this effect on Dawn, whatever it is. Or Dawn just waking up, which at this point I am starting to lose faith in after three months. We'll still keep trying, obviously. I learn a little more after each jump. But we need to face reality. Trying to get home without the beacon working over there is something like trying to hit the bull's eye on a dartboard from a thousand miles away by dropping it while flying overhead at the speed of sound. I mean, we could get lucky. But I wouldn't count on it."

Buffy once more gets the worried expression that she always does whenever anybody brings up the current state of her sister.

"How is it taking so long? I mean, the spells you use for healing all of us come from her freaking spell list, right? Being a cleric?"

Alex nods as she places the bowl on the coffee table. "Yeah. Exactly why I don't think that is what the problem is. Honestly, I expect there is some other kind of magic at work that is keeping her out of the way for whatever reason. If I had to make a guess? I'd say this is the Powers That Be making another attempt to get control again so they can drag us back into that godawful stalemate instead of winning like we have been."

Buffy groans. "With her out and you trapped off dimension..."

Alex nods, and her expression is one of absolute irritation. "The only magical backup the team has is the stuff I've already made and a cleric, a techno-pagan, Tara if they can convince her to get involved again, and Giles if he decides the situation is desperate enough to get his magic hands dirty."

Kendra pipes up at this point. "And the Paladin."

Alex rolls her eyes. True, the kid does well enough in a fight. Between him and that boarhound he chose as his pally's mount, he can lay out almost as much hurt as Kendra can when he's three feet tall. But he doesn't have the versatility of the Slayers and more or less requires an open area to work in to get that kind of damage output.

That's how lances work, after all. He'll keep a cemetery clear with the best of them. That being said...

"I'll admit he can lay out some smack, but calling a Paladin a caster is wrong in so many ways, Kendra. Just wrong."

Kendra smirks. This is another conversation the group has had before. Many times.

Alex stands up and puts her dish and spoon in the sink, having finished her meal. "I'm gonna go get showered and dressed. I need to get a few projects sorted out before we land and say hi to our adoring public."

An hour later, she has cleaned up, gotten ready for the day, started the work in the bedrooms for the new storage, and set the pixies to finish it. That'll take a few days even with a separate pixie on each. Then she starts the tattoo sheets and sets more pixies on to finish that.

The list of spells for the tattoos hasn't changed much. Non Detection so they can't be scryed on by anybody but her, enlarge and reduce person, feather fall. The various vision tattoos to see invisible, see in the dark and see through magical darkness. Finally, there is the big 'Protection From' tattoo that replaced the old protection from evil with a slightly bigger one that encompasses all four of the various protections. She finally broke down and figured that one out when they realized the PTB were stooping so low as to fiddle with people's brains trying to screw with them.

How entities can do that kind of thing and not be evil she isn't sure, but the new tattoo stops them cold. Probably why they are stepping up their game. Back in the day, this whole mess would have been entirely too many tattoos, but these days she has found ways to combine like effects. The enlarge and reduce person was only the first that got this treatment. Then the vision ones, and finally the various protections. All told she has managed to reduce it to five, each about the size of a quarter.

That said, these will take a while. Unfortunately, she hasn't had a lot of luck making things significantly faster once the final cost is sorted out.

Lastly, she goes back into the rear cargo and opens a footlocker against one wall. It has a waterproof cushion on it and serves as the storage for the portable holes. Six feet across, circular, and seemingly made of a rolled-up cloth that are currently each encased in their own long scroll case looking things. They are one of the things in the truck that you absolutely cannot store inside of an extra-dimensional space.

That way lies booms and badness.

She spends a few minutes taking a quick inventory of the thirty different cases, and like she figured they can consolidate a few of them and empty four of the steel-lined holes that appear when you roll the cloth out on a flat surface.

She once again considers whether or not it is actually worth it to try to figure out a design that is less of a hassle to get stuff out of. The reality is that the answer is probably yes, but since it is usually the Dedicated Wrights that have to deal with it and they don't really care, she has a hard time getting too excited about it.

As usual.

Setting the pixies that aren't already working on cargo shuffling, she finally goes back to the living room and sees Kendra and Buffy peering out the window and down.

"What's going on?"

Buffy laughs. "Kurin is down there with another three Asari. Just waiting. I am actually starting to feel a little bad, I mean, their world is pretty much falling apart and they are down there waiting on our beauty sleep rather than fighting their war."

She and Kendra stop laughing as the full impact of this hits them. "Maybe we should get down there."

Alex shrugs. "They can't start yet anyway. It's going to be about another ten minutes before the holes they are using have been cleared. But if you want to land and chat with them, I got no issues with it."

The four look at each other for a moment, and then Buffy glances back out the window for a bit before she starts making her way to the shuttle access.

"Yeah, I think we better. I'll do it."

A few minutes later they are on the ground and Kurin doesn't waste any time when the back door opens.

"Thank you for coming down. These three need to take a look at the interior and ask you some questions about your electrical power generation capabilities and such before they can start drawing up plans for the remodel."

Alex leans against the door jam effectively trapping Buffy and Kendra within, Willow having already made it back to her computer station and is doing her own thing for now. Laughing, Alex responds.

"Remodel? We're not remodeling anything. Or rather, you're not. I'm already making a few changes of my own for you people, but if you are looking to get in here and do an actual remodel I'm afraid you're wasting your time. Not happening. Nothing is getting permanently attached to my toys that I don't know what it is and can work on it myself."

The three engineers are looking at Kurin in confusion and one of them speaks. "The Matriarch said that we were to rebuild the interior of these supposed storage spaces to make better use of them." She then looks at the truck with levels of skepticism that are just this side of rude. "Where you have put them in this is a question I'd like to know though."

Alex holds out a hand and Blue, one of the homunculus, hands her the first tube containing a cleaned-out portable hole. Popping the lid off and letting it hang by its little lanyard while she steps down from the truck, she removes the black circle of cloth and rolls it out on the concrete-like floor.

The three engineers are completely floored. The one that was borderline rude less than a minute ago speaks in a hushed voice, unable to take her eyes off of the steel-lined pit that has been somehow laid out in front of her.

"How in the name of the Goddess did that work?"

Alex sighs. She gets so tired of trying to explain the fuzzy mystical physics that are part of what she's doing that she doesn't bother anymore.

"It's magic. Didn't somebody tell you what to expect?"

Kurin, who had been just as shell-shocked as the engineers to this point, smirks mischievously in response to that. Alex snickers.

"No, I am guessing not. I have some workers clearing three more of these to get you the promised four. It's going to take a minute as they need to consolidate some supplies into other ones in order to make that happen. But you can get an idea of what you have to work with using this one."

The engineers are only just now taking their eyes off of it and while two of them are busy scanning the hole the third looks at Alex with a bit of wonderment.

"So we have the storage space promised, but they won't always have access to it. So we can't convert them into anything else, is what you are saying."

Alex shakes her head. "Not really. I've done some interesting things with them in the past, but there are only really two places on the truck to open one. The cargo area here, and then you can technically open one on the detachable shuttle, but only just barely. You certainly couldn't leave one open in either place without causing problems eventually. In any case, I'll hand over the other three as they get emptied and you can fill them up however you like, but be advised that you absolutely cannot put one of them inside another one. It'll cause them to explode. Big boom, probably kill anybody within a good thirty feet. Don't try it."

The engineers nod, seemingly unfazed. Kurin looks a bit disconcerted, but powers on through anyway.

"So did you have anything specific that you wanted from us? I've been given the go-ahead to outfit you as best as we can from the base's equipment if you think there is anything that could help you."

Alexis smiles and keys on her microphone.

"Hey Willow. It's Christmas."

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 7.
Lottery.

>>>>

>> Six Days, Twelve Hours, Thirty-Six Minutes, And A Million Migraines Later.
Alexis is sitting at the end of a fairly long worktable and is staring down the length of it at no less than twenty-three Asari combat engineers.

"Let me see if I understand this correctly. Like ten years ago, everybody in the galaxy used guns like this."

She picks up the unloaded assault rifle from the shelf behind her and places it on the table to her left.

"These guns fired tiny little slivers of metal that were chipped off an ammo block, and you could use the things for reasonably heavy combat for days on one block as long as you gave it a little break to cool off every few seconds or so."

Then she reaches behind herself and picks up a second rifle, placing it on the right.

"This is what you are currently using. It's almost the exact same weapon, except that now the only way to get the damn thing to work is to have a supply of these 'thermal clip' things because you've stripped out the original cooling system and replaced it with a need for disposable ammo while you are in the middle of the mother of all wars of attrition."

She looks back up at the engineers. "Is that pretty much accurate?"

The lead engineer, who Alex will admit really seems to know her stuff but has nevertheless been the cause of the lion's portion of her headaches for the last few days, is the one to respond.

"Less a war of attrition than you are making it sound like. And the principle is solid. With the thermal clips, you can continue firing nonstop until you run out. With the old-style rifles, there were gaps in the firepower a person could deliver. Assuming reliable supply lines and high intensity but short duration conflicts, the new style is far superior. And those were the kind of fights we had been involved in for more than eight hundred years."

Alex looks at her with a bit of disbelief. "You couldn't just make a gun that had both systems in it?"

The engineer shrugs, and her tone borders just the nice side of condescension. "The coolant system is the single heaviest portion of a gun that is powered by Eezo. You are welcome to go speak with any of the troops and explain to them that for their own good you are going to increase the weight of the two to four firearms they have to carry around by an average of thirty-five percent and see where it gets you if you like. Besides, some attempts were made to do that a few years ago when we were switching over to the new firearms, and over and above the weight problems the cost on a per-unit basis was almost doubled. In the end, it was decided to just not mess with it."

It takes Alex a few seconds to remember that 'Eezo' is the local slang for this 'Element Zero' stuff they've shackled all their technology to. She feels the next headache coming on like a runaway train.

"And you want to send us off with a pile of these new guns and fill one of my portable holes with thermal clips when we could just as easily take the old guns, which you are all apparently too snooty to use anymore anyway?"

The lead engineer has a look on her face as though she has smelled something foul, and Alex finds herself wishing she could remember this twits name. She'd been flinging subtle abuse at what she called the 'substandard technology' in her truck pretty much from the get-go, and holy mackerel was it getting annoying.

"If you are taking our people with you in that thing when you leave, then you need to be adequately armed. If they are the future of our race, I can accept no less."

Nodding along with the whole thing while her mind is racing through the possibilities, Alex finally smiles and nods. This could work. And honestly, if it doesn't she'll still shut down the idiot in the end. Bitch is getting entirely too pushy about Alex's property for her own good.

"These ammo blocks, can they be made of iron?"

The engineer cocks her head to one side curiously. "It isn't the best substance. It lacks enough density to be optimal. But it will function in the gun fine. Because these weapons don't use magnetic or explosive propulsion, you can theoretically load them with anything that the chipper can cut into a sliver of ammo. My estimate would be that iron shot would likely cost you at least twenty percent of your effective range and damage when compared to a standard ammo block, and most likely half of its penetration into a hard target."

Alex smirks. "So, if I can modify this old-style gun so that it will fire indefinitely, or at least until you've burned through your ammo block, you'll let us take the old ones?"

The Asari looks largely disbelieving but just slightly intrigued. While this human has terrible technical skills and less understanding of modern equipment than an Asari still too young to meld, she does have this bewildering set of secondary talents that constantly makes her Omni-tool scanner have to reboot itself after finding things that cannot be.

"Assuming that you can accomplish this, yes. That would be fine."

Alex gives a quick nod, grabs the gun, and leaves before the engineer can change her mind. She's met at the door by Kurin.

"Can you actually do that?"

Alex nods on her way back to the truck. "Probably. The 'Chill Metal' system should work just fine on whatever they have in this that is currently operating as a heat sink. My only real worry is whether or not the metal in it can take the temperature extremes. Considering what it's used for though, I'm hopeful. It would be pretty pathetic if they had built a space gun that wouldn't work on an ice planet. Carve a targeting rune into the heat sink and build the Chill Metal device into one of these weapon racks that all you people seem to use as backpacks and I can't see any issue."

She blinks a couple of times as she runs the possibilities through her mind. "Have to specify the targeting rune on a per-pack basis and you wouldn't be able to use somebody else's guns without a quick modification. But it should work fine. We can test it in about twenty minutes probably, all I need is access to the heat sink and an example of the size and shape of the ammo block. I can make the mods now, it's just that until I get the backpack rack built it'll only work right next to the truck. We'll have to use the system already in there for testing. Gimme an ammo block and see if you can sort out a place to see if it works."

She looks up at her new friend and sighs. "Please. Sorry, I get excitable when I am trying new things."

Kurin grins and nods, pulling a spare block off of her pack and handing it over before she heads off to schedule time at the vehicle range.

Two hours later she is giving a demonstration where she flips a handmade switch on the weapon and then from her position standing on the roof of the truck sights downrange and holds down the trigger.

One minute passes, and then two. At the ten-minute mark, the engineers were getting confused. At the twenty-minute mark of continuously firing the lead engineer has stopped staring at the target and is instead looking at Alex in disbelief. Around thirty minutes in the weapon has finally gotten done turning a three-pound brick of iron into grains the size of fine sand moving at truly ridiculous speeds. Peppering the old junked armored vehicle at the far end of the metal-reinforced tunnel to the point the whole thing looks like somebody had spent the last hour aggressively sandblasting it.

The lead engineer, who she was told by a laughing Kurin was named Jalayae when she admitted she couldn't remember, is standing there with her mouth agape. Alex hands the weapon back so she can inspect it. She does so, and other than being even more amazed at the fact that the weapon is cold to the touch even after that demonstration learns nothing that would explain this.

"I've seen many of your magical gizmos in the last week, and I'll be the first to admit that they are amazing. But this. I must know how you did this."

Alex gives her the basic explanation and the way she plans to make it viable, installing the units into the packs that the weapons are designed to attach to and that they all wear. The woman is more interested by the second right up until Alex drops the bombshell.

"Yeah, the only real issue is that the pack racks will take about a month to modify. It's time-consuming to get done. But it isn't hard particularly, I've been playing around with these kinds of systems for years to do various things."

Jalayae is saddened to hear this and her face reflects it. She manages a weak smile before she reaches out and shakes hands with Alex.

"You are still planning to leave within the next ten days?"

Alex smiles. Not trying to be rude to those being left behind. But getting out of here features high on her to-do list at this point. "That's the plan. By then we'll have our return beacon built and the ability to talk to each other between dimensions. Maybe if things are going reasonably well for you we can come back at some point." Alex then turns to Kurin. "Isn't the drawing for this lottery thing supposed to be happening today?"

The Asari in question nods slowly, her face a combination of slightly worried and moderately annoyed. She glances at her Omni-tool for the time.

"It's in about an hour over in the mess hall. We can be there if you like."

Alex notices her expression and worries a bit for her new friend. "That was the plan. I was going to grab the whole crew, to be honest. What's gotten you down?"

The lieutenant meets her gaze briefly and sighs as they walk up the stairs and back into the truck, stopping in the cargo area to talk once the door has been shut and the wheel turned to seal it.

"Nothing big. I've just been getting a lot of flak from the rank and file for slipping into this without needing the lottery. The war isn't going particularly well. We've lost two colonies altogether, small ones, but even still. We don't have a population anywhere in the galaxy that isn't currently fighting at this point, and people are getting scared. We have plenty of die-hard patriots of course, but a lot of the people on the base just want out. They've seen and fought too much and honestly, I can't blame them."

She sighs. "And it doesn't help matters that I am nearing my three hundredth birthday. The Matriarch made the prerequisites to be in the lottery include a full education in general medicine and the sciences, plus being under two hundred years old to give them the best chance to have as many children as possible. I don't fit either of these prerequisites and it's fostering a lot of resentment from people that do and had their chances cut in half because of me."

Alex shakes her head. That isn't quite how she'd imagined the lottery going, but it does make a certain amount of sense. This isn't really a lottery like she is used to, where the winner gets a bunch of money. It is an attempt to save a species from annihilation. It would follow that they would be a little picky about who they sent.

"Well, for what it's worth your room is done and as far as I am concerned you can move in any time. Your sizing tattoo is done too, but the rest still have a while." She laughs. "Unfortunately you'll be stuck in the goggles awhile yet if we need to use the stealth and It'll be even longer before we can get you airborne on your own."

She snaps her fingers. "That reminds me, we need to get you fitted for armor. You're welcome to bring your current suit if you really want to, but since I haven't had a lot of luck in the past with enchanting modern composite materials like that we are going to have to get you kitted out more like we are." Then she looks down a little, never being a huge fan of admitting what she can't do. "If you do want to bring your own equipment though, like these guns and your armor, be advised that you'll be on your own fixing it if anything goes wrong. You'd be amazed just how low tech my skill base actually is."

Kurin smiles. "If so, all that does is show how amazing you actually are, that you can incorporate your skills into things as effective as you do. You know that, right?"

Alexis rolls her eyes. "You can stop that, you're already in. Buttering me up will get you nothing."

Then she keys on her microphone. "Hey, peeps. Wanna go see who they're going to saddle us with? The lotto is going live in like forty-five minutes now."

>>>>

Thirty-five minutes later they are walking into the mess hall and taking a seat in the back of the room. There is a podium on a platform set up front, naturally. Must be a cultural thing, Alex decides. Wanting to be above the people you're talking to. The place is already fairly full of people, and a lot of them are giving the four humans some pretty odd looks.

The base they are on is enormous, taking up a good third of a mountain that would have looked right at home in the Canadian Rockies. So while there are more than a few Asari that have seen them, and everybody here knows the portions of their story that have been made public, there are entire sections of the base that have never come across them and have only heard rumors of miracle-working humans that saved a platoon, performed healing that had never been done, and were going to rescue one of them from this pit they were all expecting to die in.

The looks Kurin gets are quite a bit more bitter from many of them. But the lieutenant has gotten fairly used to it by this point and deals with it stoically. When the Matriarch walks in and takes her place as the speaker, a hush falls over the crowd.

"Thank you all for coming. You all know why we are here, and there is only one of you that doesn't have better things to do, sadly. So I'll make this brief. We have added all the names entered into the computer, and then removed those who did not meet the decided upon criteria. This left us with only seven possibilities. Seven of us under two hundred, perfect health, with multiple degrees in medicine and hard sciences, and as close to a perfect service record as we are likely to find in these times. We then interviewed the seven based on some criteria that the humans had, and that was further reduced to three."

She stops for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

"Three of us to choose from to find one that will join Lieutenant Kurin and her friends on an adventure that may very well save our race from extinction."

She reaches over to a device that looks like nothing so much as a hot air popcorn popper and flips it on. A few seconds later, a ball comes flying out of it into the bowl set before it and she turns the machine off. She picks up the ball, reads the code on it, and then cross-references it with something on her Omni-tool. "Calia T'Murain. Please stay to be introduced to your new travel companions. The rest of you, understand that it is our job to see to it that her sacrifice in leaving her home is completely in vain. It is our job to win this war against the Reapers and to see to it that when she returns, it will be merely an oddity that history will soon ignore. Now aside from her, get back to work and let us make that happen."

As the population of the base that happened to be in the age bracket to be possible qualifiers begins filing out of the room, the Matriarch motions them forward. Their first view of the new girl doesn't particularly impress. She's a bit on the small side for an Asari, being only five foot even. Her skin is a slightly lighter shade of blue than Kurin's, and like Kurin her forehead is adorned with odd markings that travel back along her scalp in symmetrical lines. Unlike Kurin's which are pale lavender, hers are instead a bright white. She looks to be in great health and has the jaw-dropping body that seems to be endemic with the race, but the bright smile of actual cheer rather than the usual black humor that has been prevalent is somewhat jarring.

"Hi! I'm Calia. I'd like to thank you for this wonderful opportunity!"

Buffy puts her hand out to shake, being slightly mollified that there was finally a second person in her life that is actually shorter than her.

"Welcome! We'll need to get you moved into the truck with the rest of us later today."

The Matriarch smiles, just barely. Not so much that it could be seen by the untrained eye, but just enough to change her expression ever so slightly. Then she walks away. Head held high, secure in the knowledge that she had given her sister's granddaughter the best chance that she could. Not by cheating, that would have been unconscionable. Merely by setting realistic and discerning criteria that weeded out nearly all of her competition. In the end, the one in three chance was completely legitimate. But getting her to that point had required a bit of planning ahead.

Calia is all but bouncing as she speaks.

"So you are just over in the motor pool, correct? I can have my bags packed to meet you there in twenty minutes."

At Alex's smile and nod, she is gone so fast she may as well have teleported herself away.

Kendra can't help but giggle a little. "Wow. Let's not ever give her any caffeine, or whatever the Asari version is. I'm not sure I could take it."

Willow smiles and holds Alex's hand for a few seconds, shaking her head. "Do we know how old she is?"

Kurin activates her Omni-tool. "I was supposed to be getting the files on whoever the chosen candidate was, let me dig it out." There is silence for a minute or so as the five of them make their way back to the motor pool. "She's eighty-seven. Asari don't age like humans do, even if you were to stretch out the lifespan the ratios are off. So I'll tell you that is really young for one of us. She has the education and a little time in the field. But to put it in human terms, mentally she would probably be about sixteen. Maybe." She grimaces. "Maybe a bit less, given what we just saw."

The four humans consider that as they are walking along. Finally, just as they are reaching the truck, Buffy turns to Alex.

"So how soon are we leaving?"

Waiting until they are in the truck proper, Alex answers.

"The beacon has six more days, and the communicator eight, I think. So we can technically leave anytime after six and still keep our part of the bargain. Why, are we in a bigger hurry than I thought?"

Buffy looks thoughtful for a moment and then sighs. "Just something I found out today while Kendra and I were attending a self-defense class. They are finding that these Reaper things have some kind of mind control ability. Not really interested in finding out how long it is going to take until they've subverted some poor sap who knows where this base is, you know?"

Alex gives Kurin a look. The soldier shrugs. "It's true, as near as I can tell. These bastards are one nightmare after another. The current theory is that this is how they actually wipe the galaxy clean. Subverting people and using them to get the locations of anybody that might be hiding. After all, nobody just walks away without saying goodbye to anybody or leaving an electronic trail that could be followed. Honestly, it's something that we are mostly trying not to think about too hard and just get the fighting done, hope that is enough. The idea of one of those disgusting things getting in your head is more than anyone wants to seriously consider."

On this somber note, there is a knock on the door and their new passenger is speaking almost before the door is open all the way.

"Hi! I'm here! Oh my Goddess, what are those!?"

Alex peeks back where she is pointing and sees a pair of the dedicated wrights doing something with a small spool of platinum. She turns back to Calia and sighs tiredly. These endless explanations she'd been giving are getting a bit old. It'll be nice when they are back on the move, that's for sure.

>>>>

>> Three excruciating hours later.
"This is the room you two will be sharing. The cupboard and drawers work with the switches, same as the ones in the cargo area that we assigned to you two for any larger equipment that you don't want in your room. I'll leave it to you two on deciding who gets the top bunk, and you're on your own deciding on how you deal with the bathroom schedule. Anytime you want a shower, feel free to use the facilities in the cargo hold. It's pretty rare that we have anything going on in there that can't be put on hold for a half-hour. Don't worry about the water situation, our supply is unlimited. We have some electrical sockets installed for any equipment you end up using from our world, and the engineering corp took a look at our setup, did a bunch of tests, and decided that basic adapters would be the best route. So they had about twenty of them made for you two, they're currently in the cupboard in a case. First cubby."

Alexis finally steps out of the room and starts making her way back to the stairs.

"Anyway, I need to get busy doing stuff. Very important, can't wait for it stuff. So I'll be heading to my shop. If you have any questions feel free to ask any of the crew, just, not me for a while. I'll be busy. With the aforementioned stuff. That's very important."

Calia brightens again at the thought of 'important stuff.'

"What are you doing? Maybe I can help!"

Alexis pales and all but stumbles on her way down the stairs.

"Gah. No. No, I need to handle this myself, unfortunately. Maybe next time. Thanks though. I appreciate the offer."

Then having escaped into her workshop she locks the doors and leans back in the swivel chair, holding her nose. After a few minutes of letting her irritation fade a bit, she pulls out her notepad and starts sketching out a basic Chill Metal system for the back-mounted weapons rack things. It'll take her a while, and it's something they will eventually need most likely. The fact that it gets her away from the new girl long enough to center herself a bit is just a coincidence.

Honest.

>>>>

It takes another three days for the Asari to finally decide exactly how they are going to equip their two hopeful survivors, and much as Buffy had guessed, they end up filling one of the portable holes with containers of Element Zero. Though not for the reason that they might have thought. Alex's eyebrows climb right up into her hairline when she hears the reasoning.

"You mean that all you Asari have this stuff in your bodies before your birth?"

Calia nods, her irrepressible cheer hasn't been dimmed in the slightest.

"Yup! It is what makes beings here biotic, and able to manipulate matter as we do. Thessia has a huge amount of it and pretty much all life here has evolved to use it in one way or another. It has effects on mass when you run a current through it. Given that the nervous system is basically an organic power grid, it can allow for some pretty impressive things. The amount of Eezo in that hole is more than enough to keep a huge number of Asari children in their biotic power for a really long time. All that's really needed is a trace amount consumed by the mother during pregnancy. Most of these contain slow-release capsules about three millimeters across that cling to the stomach lining and slowly release for the duration. It's a standard item sent to colonies where there isn't any easily at hand. Should work fine."

She motions toward the few different boxes that were getting stored. "The rest is a bit of standard refined eezo we can use to repair any of our equipment, should it be damaged. Theoretically, there should be enough in these that even if every child we raise is pregnant every moment that they can be, we should still have plenty for a few thousand years worth. But if for whatever reason we do happen to start running low, we have the scanning equipment for our descendants to come back and dig up some more when things here will be calming down." Her smile slips just slightly. "You know. One way or another."

Kurin motions to the other three tubes that they are nestling back into their holding racks in the cargo area footlocker.

"Honestly, I am happier about the rest of this. A few hundred Omni-tools, the old-style guns you preferred of various types, armor, an enormous amount of medi-gel, though between you and me I think we probably won't be using that. Your ways are significantly better. But the best of course is a data bank that contains all the scientific, medical, cultural, and military knowledge that the Asari ever committed to a digital format. Plus a huge amount from Turian, Solarian, and humans from this dimension. Anything that they gave us or that we managed to learn about them." She grins. "Plus, as an added bonus, all the vids for all the races are considered 'culture.' So we have more entertainment than could be watched in ten Asari lifetimes, just sitting there waiting to be viewed."

Alex laughs. "Well, I know Willow is impressed with her new system."

The call of: "Darn skippy I am, this is awesome!" from the living quarters makes them all laugh a bit, though Calia is looking a little haunted as she peers through the doorway into the living quarters.

Seeing the look in her eyes, Alex nods her way. "What's bugging you?"

The younger Asari looks ashamed, almost embarrassed. But when pressed again by a concerned look she caves and whispers her response.

"I am just worried about your Willow. I saw her bleeding on an Omni-tool earlier, and then after that on the new computer system the engineers gave her. Is she okay?"

Alex smirks. "She's fine. She does magic with technology. I'm sure she would absolutely love to tell you all about it, you should go ask her."

When the excitable alien disappears back into the depths of the truck, obviously making a beeline for the redhead, Kurin stifles a giggle.

"Willow is going to make you pay for that."

Laughing, Alex just closes the footlocker and settles in to spend some time with the puppies.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 8
Getting the Duck out of Fodge.

>>>>

"What the hell is that, and why does it look like you are thinking about putting it on top of my truck?" Alex asks Jalayae using a tone that suggests the wrong answer will see her dead in a ditch.

The lead engineer looks at the owner of the truck in question with an expression of extreme hurt coupled with some irritation and just a sliver of hope.

"This is the primary armament off of a class X main battle hover tank. It is a full three hundred and sixty-degree turret with ninety degrees of elevation and thirty-eight degrees depression. It comes with a pair of coaxial heavy machine guns flanking a four-inch diameter mass driver that has an effective range of over two hundred and fifty miles in the atmosphere. It includes an integrated virtual intelligence assistant for the operator and is quite capable of targeting and downing smaller spacecraft in low orbit using only seconds to prepare the first shot. It is one of the finest ground-based weapons in our arsenal, and the vehicle that this one was attached to was largely destroyed earlier this week resulting in the salvage you see here. As for your concern, I am not planning to permanently attach this to your 'vacationing' vehicle."

She says 'vacationing' with enough sarcasm that the wacky finger quotes are implied. "I simply wish to test whether or not your unique cooling system is viable at a larger scale."

Alex looks at her in shock. "Okay. First, no. I am not risking that thing crushing my truck. And second, why are you even screwing around with this when you know I am leaving tomorrow? It isn't like I'll be able to build one of the systems for you."

The engineer grits her teeth in annoyance. "But you will have the capability of traveling back and forth, and I can send you design specifications through the communicator you are finishing now. My hope was that you would be willing to produce a few for our use that we could then install. The only drawback of this cannon, and many of our space-based mass drivers, is the lower rate of fire so they have the time to dissipate heat. It is a particular problem in a vacuum, as without anything for the heat to transfer to it will build up over the course of an engagement until the current heat dissipation systems cannot keep up with the demand, and then the craft is forced to rely on secondary armaments for a time. In some cases up to a minute."

Alex sighs. She really can't blame her, in the engineer's shoes she'd be grasping at straws too. And it is entirely possible that this would work. Would it be enough to turn the tide? Doubtful, even if she had the ability to mass-produce the things which she very much does not. Assuming that she had absolutely nothing else on her plate, she could only make eight at a time and each system would take more than a month. Probably a lot more than a month, given that it would have to be developed at a stronger level in the case of spaceship canons. The basic model only affects seventy-five pounds of material at a time in a maximum of a fifteen-foot radius. Combine that with the fact that she has no real intention of coming back here within her own lifetime unless circumstances change dramatically, and all of a sudden there seems to be very little reason to indulge her. Excepting of course that doing so will get her to leave them alone until tomorrow, hopefully.

"Look, you put that thing on a flatbed and show me where the heat sink is to scratch in the mod real quick and we'll give it a shot. As long as the system is within ten or fifteen feet of the side of the truck it should be close enough to get targeted." At her grin, Alexis raises a hand in the universal 'slow down' motion. "Even if it works though, you need to understand that it would take me months, years even, to get enough of these things built to have any real impact on the fight here. We'd be mostly doing this for... Research purposes, let's say. I'm not saying that I wouldn't be willing to discuss things but don't get your hopes up. My dimension isn't exactly a walk in the park either, I vacation in a big old armored rig that's armed to the teeth for a reason and not to be an ass, but my apocalypses take precedence over yours."

The engineer had apparently stopped paying complete attention sometime directly after the word 'flatbed' and had started giving out orders to her subordinates. Alex sighs and heads back into the truck so she can drive it back over to the gunnery range. It isn't like the lunatic can say she wasn't told at least. It isn't Alexis' job to make her pay attention.

Two hours later and a half-hour into continuous firing they have to stop because there is a real danger that the massively thick armor plate beyond the debris patch that used to be their target vehicle was going to give out.

Jalayae is smiling so wide that she is practically hidden behind the sparkle of her pearly white teeth.

"That. Was. Amazing. I so wish you had arrived under better circumstances and I could impose on you to remain and work with me for a time. Unfortunately, the Matriarch won't hear of it. Those in charge are rather enamored with the idea of our race having a backup plan. But I will spend what downtime I have attempting to put together some plans to send you."

Alex nods, smiling back. Her plans haven't changed, but legitimately it was kinda fun. And, well, who knows? The future is a strange thing, after all.

"Go ahead and send them when you can. Willow is finishing up the tech portion of the com system now, so I can give you the basics of how it works before we leave. Just don't be disappointed if I can't always answer. I'll check the messages."

Nodding wildly and beginning the process of inspecting the weapon to verify that it was still in good working order, she waves as the flatbed rises slightly off the ground and is driven away with her on it.

After warning everybody that the truck will be moving again and taking it back to their designated parking spot, she heads into the back and sees that her original three friends are in the living compartment waiting for her. Buffy playing with puppies, Kendra preparing dinner, and Willow as usual playing with her new toys in the 'tech corner' of the truck.

"Where's the Asari at?"

There is a bit of good-natured laughter as Willow answers. "I reminded them that any money they had was going to be worthless pretty soon and that they were going to be stuck eating human food for a long time. They are both at the shops on base going a little crazy and I think they planned on blowing whatever was left on eating out tonight."

Alex can't help the giggle. "I hope they don't go too nuts, we don't have infinite space here."

Buffy smirks. "Not to worry. I explained that they were going to have to get all new clothes and stuff anyway so that the disguise spell thingy had the right stuff behind it, and they both ditched all but like three outfits each. Whatever they're buying, I don't think its clothes. But they should have lots of storage space for whatever it is."

Kendra snarks out: "Probably the Asari version of chocolate."

They all chuckle a bit at that until they remember that they haven't had the human version of chocolate for most of three months since their own supply ran out. Then the mood dampens a bit. Kendra tries to brighten things with food when she announces that dinner is ready, but there isn't really much chance of that working. They are all more than a little worried about tomorrow. What if the Asari give them trouble getting out of here? Maybe even worse, what if they don't and somehow the next place is actually worse? Given the current three-day turnaround before another jump can be made, there are plenty of places they'd gotten dumped into that could have been beyond problematic had they been stuck there for that kinda time.

By the same token though, it is difficult to imagine an unknown that could genuinely measure up to the danger they were already in here, so it goes without saying that they will be leaving. But the choice being already made doesn't remove the worry, unfortunately.

When they awaken next, both of the Asari are somewhat hating life. Their last night on Thessia had devolved into a bit of a drunken fiasco that would likely have had both of them cooling their heels in a cell for a day or two were it not for their extraordinary circumstances. Surprisingly, rather than any kind of ceremony it turns out that the Matriarch has a single Asari show up in a fairly tricked out looking small cargo spacecraft to pick up the devices for communication and inter-dimensional transport. Of note is that for whatever reason the rest of the base has apparently got better things to do because there is nobody else in the motor pool. Alexis finds that she can't quite let this particular curiosity go and crosses her arms as she leans against the truck.

"Let me see if I have this straight. Your Matriarch has been asking for daily updates on this thing, and now that I have it done she wants to ship it somewhere else?"

The Asari in question has the appropriate paperwork according to Kurin and Calia. But she won't give her name which makes Alex more than a little concerned.

"Not ship it. We're installing it in the cargo hold of my ship and then I get to play hide and seek with the Reapers."

Alex shakes her head in confusion. "Why? Why would she do that?"

The woman stares at Alex with an expression that, on its surface, seems almost entirely devoid of emotion. But as they stare into each other's faces she begins to realize that this person isn't unemotional. Rather, she is extremely emotional and barely holding onto the edge with her fingertips. When she answers, her voice is a bitingly cold wind that cuts right to the bone and leaves no doubt as to how she feels about this.

"She didn't volunteer any information, and I didn't ask. But if you put some thought into why she would want the last real hope of my people to not be here, I suspect that even your addled brain will eventually come to the proper conclusion."

Alex's heart skips a beat. "She doesn't expect to win this. I knew that, but I was hoping things would get better." Looking down, Alex's voice drops to a whisper. "She's expecting the base to fall soon, isn't she?"

The woman is silent. Staring at Alexis, and seemingly willing to wait until the human had gotten done thinking about things for the promised equipment to be installed on her well-stocked ship so she can leave.

It takes about an hour, and they make it a point to drive the truck onboard for a moment to make sure it has the clearance all the way around. For assurance that she can hit the target inside the craft, rather than being dumped out into space for her trouble in the event that they did find a reason to return anytime soon. The woman explains that she will be trying to find a place the Reapers had already finished with that was stable enough to support Asari life, and she would move it there when she could along with a communications array that can reach out for them. Just in case there is anybody left when they return. She is still very quiet when she shakes Alexis' hand and wishes her luck. A sentiment that is returned. Then she takes off and is gone almost immediately. Alex has her communicator activated before the freighter has made it to the space-bound exit tunnel.

"Everybody get ready for departure. I think it's time to get the hell out of here."

>>>>

>> Twenty Minutes Later.
"Okay. Everybody armored up and armed? There's no guarantee we're not coming out into another war zone. Let's hear it by the numbers. Willow, you first." Alex asks over the headsets to everyone, the Asari having been equipped with their own versions at this point. She'd had to modify them as their ears are not up to the task of hanging things off of like everybody else's.

"Are we not using call signs anymore? Did we stop that now?" Is Buffy's comment.

Alex sighs with optional eye roll. "Fine. Q here. Red, location and task."

Willow comes on the line with a relatively high degree of professionalism, for her. "Red here. Um... I'm at my computer and waiting to see what if anything is on the airwaves when we arrive. Same thing I always do."

Alex nods to herself with a slight smile. That's her Willow.

"Q here again. Smalls, location and task."

The irritation from Kendra is pretty obvious by her tone.

"Smalls here. Shuttle pilot, as always. We discussed this five minutes ago, do we really need to cover it again?"

"Yes." Alex deadpans. "Yes, we do. Slayer, same question."

There is a disgruntled sound on the headsets. "Slayer here. In with the puppies, armed, armored, and ready to go if things go all wonky. By the way, are these puppies supposed to grow this fast? This is kinda crazy."

"Q here. As I understand it, yeah. The other me said they can pretty easily hit the three hundred pound mark in a few months. Kurin, location and task."

Kurin's response is belted out like the career soldier she is. At least to start.

"Kurin here. I am just behind the shield on the front right gun, in case we run into trouble on arrival." Her voice gets significantly less professional when she continues, and a bit of longing creeps in. "How come I don't have a cool call sign?"

"Q again. Because you haven't picked one. Calia, location and task."

There is a moment of silence, and then she belts out in a tone that is still recognizable as military, but maybe not quite so professional.

"Kudzu here. I am behind the protective blast shield on the left rear, and for the same reason that Kurin is on hers."

Alex laughs. "Kudzu? Where the heck did you come up with that?"

There is silence for a moment, and then Calia continues in a quiet voice that practically begs for approval. "I read some on Willow's computer about the place I am supposed to be going, and like me, Kudzu is an invasive species, are they not? And like them, I wish to grow and propagate until I can take over my home, correct? Did I get it wrong?"

There is silence on the line, and then a much more sober sounding Alexis comes back on the line.

"No, Kudzu. I think that is probably about perfect, and well done learning about my... I mean our home." A few more moments of silence, and then Alex finishes it off.

"As you know I am in the cab of the truck with my hand on the switch. We are aiming for a dimension that has humans, a planet that has bipeds as we know them, and that has the right mix of land and water. And for you new people, no. It doesn't always work right. But we can hope. On three, two, one..."

Nobody hears 'go' and seconds later they are in a whole new world.

The first thing that happens is that Alex and Kendra both make very loud "Gaah" sounds. Inarticulate noises of distress. Buffy is immediately on the line.

"Slayer here. Situation?"

Alex is busy rubbing her eyes and blinking. "Q here. Stand down. It's just the sun. We've been underground for what, two weeks? And we popped up practically staring at the local sun."

Kendra is next and sounds if anything even more annoyed. "Smalls. Same here. I can see enough to gain a little altitude if we want to. Should we kick on the invisibility?"

Still blinking, tears in her eyes, and half-blind, Alex isn't sure of much. But there is one thing that strikes her immediately. "Holy crap, peeps. These look like regular old skyscrapers. This might be it."

Willow comes on and dashes her hopes.

"Red here. I don't think so. I could be wrong, but too much of the stuff I am finding is just not right. It's close though, you are getting better at dialing us in."

Alexis leans back and curses unintelligibly, still rubbing her eyes and trying to get them used to the glorious day star that currently holds so much hate for her.

"Q here. I'm sorry everybody. I tried, and we can try again in another three days. In the meantime, Kendra is probably right. We should probably get some altitude and go unseen for a while until we can get our bearings at least."

Twenty-six people that day make a report of an alien truck invasion that was going to kill them all from the shadows. One of them asserts it was probably crewed with vampires and the reason they went away was because they didn't want anyone to see them sparkle.

Thankfully, nobody listened to any of them.

As the truck put some air under its wheels, something sticks out ahead of them and off to the right. It's a building, but one with an unusual bit of ornamentation on the roof. Alex blinks. And then does it again, not being quite ready to believe what she is seeing. Finally, after a few seconds of it stubbornly refusing to become the illusion that she so expected it would be, she keys up the microphone.

"Willow? Could you please come up to the cab? I need to show you something."

"Red here. I thought we were using radio languagey type stuff again?"

The grin on her face is now threatening to split her head wide open. "Willow, please. I need you to see this. I really do."

"I can take off my see the invisible and see whatever it is from here you know."

"Please, Willow. Because Jesse would want us to do this together."

She's getting a little worried now, as there isn't that much that will get Alexis to dredge up memories of her best childhood guy friend these days. He had been turned by vampires and Alexis had been forced to stake him herself. Himself, at the time.

Well, aside from Thanksgiving and copious amounts of alcohol, anyway. That would get her to talk about him.

There is the sound of the door behind her opening and Willow leans over her shoulder.

"What? What is it?"

Alexis points out the window on the right. "Look out there and tell me if you see anything noteworthy."

"I see buildings and asphalt. What are you getting..."

She trails off. "Holy poop on a stick! Is that what I think it is!?"

Kurin is looking out the right-hand side as well, as her gunnery port unlike the front of the shuttle actually has a view of the area they are talking about. The shuttle cockpit has good frontal vision ports, but that's all.

"Kurin here. What are you two going on about? I don't see anything unusual."

Willow and Alex share a look, gazing into the currently semitransparent eyes of each other for a second and savoring the moment. Alex clears her throat.

"What we are going on about is that if we're right... If it's even possible and not just a false alarm. We might just have a way to beat those damn Reapers now."

The two then look out the window again at the building with the giant golden globe on the roof that proudly proclaims itself to be the offices of the Daily Planet.

>>>>

Author's note.
The crack starts in earnest now.

Also, I don't own DC Comics OR Harry Potter. Both will be relevant soon. But, yeah. No money for me.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 9
Um... Whoops?

>>>>

"And you are absolutely, positively, no take-backs sure that this is actually the place where Superman comes from?" Buffy asks Willow while looking over her shoulder at the screen. A screen that is absolutely covered in seemingly legitimate news reports concerning what superhuman heroes have been up to.

Their resident self-proclaimed 'former' nerd has been pawing through internet databases for the last hour, completely in sync with her new Asari upgraded computer. Her eyes shut, and a fresh smear of blood on it from where she poked herself with a safety pin when she started getting serious. Her smile is wide and her tone is positively gleeful.

"It checks out to ninety-eight percent what I remember from what the boys used to talk about growing up, and the two percent could easily be just a slight dimensional shift from whatever it was to what was reflected in our comics and movies."

She opens her eyes and her expression becomes slightly less happy for a moment as she glances at the Asari, who are both still trying to wrap their minds around what in the world the humans are talking about. "Of course, that cuts both ways. Even with the need on Thessia and other places in your dimension, this place has a lot of problems of its own."

Calia looks quizzically at the redhead that is quickly becoming a mentor of hers in all things Earthling as well as basic mysticism. "What could they have here that would be worse than the Reapers?"

Willow gives her a very serious look. "Well, first of all, you need to stop looking at it like that. Their problems that kill their people are likely to be more important to them than your problems, regardless of differences in death statistics. That's just the way things work and if you think about it seriously, I'm guessing you'll find that you feel the same way."

She turns back to her keyboard and starts punching keys. "That being said, they had an invasion attempt a few years ago according to the news archives that if they didn't have all these crazy powerful heroes to deal with could have pretty easily gotten as bad as the problem on Thessia."

The screen then displays the scowling figure of an enormous man that is seemingly made out of stone. He wears some kind of blue plate armor that covers most of his vitals and is surrounded by a veritable throng of winged demons.

Kurin pales a bit at the sheer size of the creature. Easy to determine in the picture as it is standing opposite another man in a blue, red, and yellow costume and dwarfing him as well as the truck in the foreground.

"Who or what is that!?"

Alexis answers, groaning. "Darkseid? Really? That thing had to be real too?"

Willow nods, though her eyes are shut again. "Huh. Officially, there is very little known about him. I suspect if I dug around I could find files somewhere, but since if I got caught that would be kinda rude and I can't promise that wouldn't happen I should probably hold off on it unless it becomes important somehow."

Alex sighs. "Probably a good call." She turns to the Asari. "The important bits, assuming the comics ring true here, are that he runs his own planet. Is strong enough to wreck cities in minutes without half trying, and just in case that isn't enough has an army of demonic slaves backed by other super-powered things. You know. Just for funsies. If this dimension has issues like him on a regular basis, your problems might be a tougher sell than we hoped."

The two Asari are looking at each other in despair as their shaky flash of hope dwindles. Buffy wraps Calia in an arm from the side.

"Hey, don't give up before we try. According to the comics, most of these heroes are genuinely good people. If we can sort out how to get a hold of any of them and plead our case I'm betting we can get some help. I mean, they have their own problems sure. But it's tough to beat thousands of genocidal mile-long robots operating on a galactic scale and backed by a self-perpetuating super powered zombie horde that also uses guns and intelligence."

Sadly, and unsurprisingly, her attempt at cheering them up seems to have the opposite effect. After a few seconds, she realizes this by the looks of utter despair on the faces of both of the blue aliens. When Calia turns to her and completes the hug she started the blonde Slayer finds herself patting the young Asari on the back as tears drip on her shoulder.

"Um, I just meant that we shouldn't give up..."

Alexis at this point is rubbing her eyes. "Just stop while you're ahead, Buff."

Kurin mutters under her breath. "Don't you mean before she's any further behind?"

Kendra is giving Buffy a bit of a look when she responds to that. "Yeah, I think that's what she meant."

In response, Buffy sighs and does what she remembers doing for Dawn when she was little. Picks up the young Asari and sits down on the couch with the girl on her lap and rubs her back while making soothing noises.

Kurin is shaking her head and whispers to the other three. "I can't believe things have gotten so bad they're putting children before their hundredth in that grinder. It would have been tough for anybody, but now that we are out of that pressure cooker I wouldn't be surprised if she takes a bit of time to calm down."

Willow turns to Kendra and Alexis. "PTSD you think?"

Kurin raises an eyebrow in query.

Kendra answers the unvoiced question. "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We all had to take training in how to recognize the signs of it in our coworkers. We have some state-sponsored assistance back home, but they are all normal humans with our standard low tech, adding maybe a few toys here and there from Alex. Plus they hadn't been doing it since they were teens like we were, so they weren't really ready for it. On average they lose about one recruit in three to this. They just can't take it." She shrugs. "Though whether or not that would be what's going on here I couldn't tell you. We weren't exactly trained to spot it in Asari."

Alexis is frowning deeply and mutters something under her breath so low that even Willow, who is closest to her, can't make it out. Just as she is about to ask what is going on, the yellow hard hat wearing Wright opens the door from the cargo area and hands her a piece of paper with a raised black design on it in the shape of a yin-yang like a symbol only with four parts instead of two and further rune symbols in the ball portion of each.

"Thank you, Yellow."

Pleased to have been of assistance, the homunculus hugs her arm briefly and then makes her way happily back to work.

Alexis walks quietly up behind the inconsolable alien and ever so gently starts taking off her armor. The rest of the humans figure out what is going on at this point and start helping.

It doesn't take long before she is down to her smallclothes, and Alex slowly pulls up her shirt and presses the scrap of paper against the center of her back, very careful to see to it the alignment would be optimal for aesthetic reasons. There is a soft dance of rainbow color on the site, and then nothing for a few seconds. When Alexis pulls her hand away the rather beautiful design is imprinted on her.

Then the poor girl starts going into convulsions. Alex jams her gloved hand into the Asari's mouth so she won't bite her tongue off and they ride it out for a few seconds while Kurin looks on in horror watching a black ichor leaking from the poor girl's eyes, nose, and mouth. As soon as she stops, Alex checks her vitals. Finding that she is seemingly doing all right as best as she can tell she pulls out her cleaning tool to get the crap off of her and Buffy, then hits her with a couple of charges from her belt of healing for good measure. Kurin watches it all with rising levels of distress until it becomes obvious that Calia is at this point merely in a deep if somewhat fitful sleep as she has yet to let go of Buffy and is making the occasional soft sound of distress.

"What. The. Fuck. Was that?"

Buffy jerks her chin towards the upstairs and starts carrying her emotion-laden burden to bed while Alex answers the older Asari.

"That was the 'Protection From' array. Protection from Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil all wrapped up in one tidy little package. One of the primary things it does is shut down attempts at mind control. I'll be honest, I wasn't positive it would work on Reaper stuff, whatever it is. But when she fell apart so fast once we were off dimension it seemed like it couldn't hurt. Just in case."

Kurin's gaze immediately goes to the ceiling, where they can see just barely the movement through the partially transparent floor.

"So it wasn't this PTSD thing?"

Alex shrugs. "I'm sure there was some of that too, but she's been doing fine for the last eight days. Suddenly, we're somewhere she can't be directly influenced anymore and she completely falls apart at one dumb comment? Let's just say I had a hunch. You'll be getting yours in about ten minutes when the next one gets done. I already had them in the pipe before we left, was planning on giving them to you before we hopped dimensions just in case" She scuffs the floor with a toe rather contritely. "I spaced it when that ship captain showed up and I just wanted to get out of there."

The four still in the room settle into an awkward silence as they wait, and Kurin sits and tries to keep her heartbeat under control while her mind goes wild. She doesn't feel like she has been influenced. But how would she know? She's been around husks and random Reaper crap often enough during the three months Thessia has been under siege.

Finally, Yellow returns with another one, and wordlessly, Kurin removes her armor and presents her back. Three minutes later, Alex is cleaning the ichor off of her and Kendra is carrying her upstairs to sleep it off.

Willow looks at Alexis in growing discontent and after a time they embrace on the couch.

"We have to get help for them. We just have to, if this is how widespread the control is then they can't win." Willow all but whimpers into her shoulder.

"I know. We'll do what we can. But at least we learned two things from this."

Willow sniffles a little. "What's that?"

"Their control, however it works, apparently takes quite a while to get powerful enough to blatantly puppet anybody around. If I had to make a guess I would say it probably tends to be more little influences and stuff at first."

"And second?" Willow asks.

Alexis manages something between a smirk and a snarl. "I can shut it down. Good to know when you are thinking about asking a Kryptonian for help."

Willow pales at the thought. "Oh. Yeah."

Nodding while she cuddles her wife, Alexis slowly rubs her back in circles.

>>>>

The next morning comes early and the lot of them congregate in the living area to discuss plans, including the now recovered and not very talkative Asari. Buffy tries to break the awkwardness by attempting to get the ball rolling.

"So how are we going to get in touch with these hero types?"

Alexis pushes her bowl away from herself with a look on her face of pure frustration.

"I spent half the night thinking about that and I honestly have no idea. I mean, we can find them easy enough, at least the main ones that I can remember their civilian names. But I can't imagine any of them are going to be a huge fan of random people they've never heard of showing up at their door to say hi."

She sighs. "My first thought was to head to Smallville and visit the Kent farm. It can't be that tough to find, how many Kents are likely to be in the area growing ridiculous amounts of corn? But then I thought to myself: 'Self, what would you do if you were some ultimately studly powerhouse and some jackoffs from another dimension decided to beg for help after tracking down Jenny and Joyce?' After that I reevaluated. He could be the nicest guy on the planet, completely live up to the comic, and I still couldn't see that being a good start to a working relationship. Might be a good way to get my truck shoved up my ass, but that would be about it I'm betting. And I don't think showing up at the Daily Planet to bug him at work would go over any better."

Kendra picks up the dishes from the coffee table and drops them in the sink for the Wrights to get to later. "Well, we have to do something. Which ones do you know? Maybe there's one that might be easier to approach?"

Alexis laughs. A desperately pathetic thing that ends on another sigh.

"That's just it. The ones that aren't six degrees of paranoid about who knows their name tend to be that way because they don't really have a home address. They either stay wherever their team is at the time or they are barely from earth anymore and spend an enormous amount of time off-planet. There really isn't a lot of middle ground. I think I remember the actual names of the Green Lanterns, but I have no idea if they would even bother maintaining a residence on earth, and do we really want to track down every Jon Stewart and Kyle Rayner on the planet? These aren't terribly uncommon names. Barry Allen? Sure, the Flash could tear apart husks at a thousand an hour with a screwdriver and a hammer while wearing lead shoes maybe, but there must be a million people with that name."

She leans back in her seat, rubbing her right eye with her thumb. "And the ones that I can remember enough about them to find them are the hyper-paranoid sort. We show up at Wayne Manor and we'll have various Bat-themed crap sticking out of every orifice before we get to the doorbell. The only one I can think of that is public, not paranoid, and supposed to be approachable what with her being a political type is Wonder Woman, and for whatever reason, she's off the grid. Willow can't find anything on her aside from an office in DC that you need to basically be a world leader to get an appointment to see her at."

Kurin finally breaks in looking confused. "If you can't contact them, how do you ask for help?"

Alex slowly shakes her head. "You don't. They have a satellite and informants and they watch the news. Heck, Superman works for the newspaper over there. He probably knows what problems are cropping up before the cops do. They show up where they're needed, do what they can, and go about their business. The only way I can promise you we could get in touch without them immediately thinking we were trying to blackmail them or something else equally stupid would be to do something bad enough to get their attention. And frankly, not only would that go against the grain more than a lot but it isn't the kind of attention I'd want from any of them anyway."

She stands and adopts a dopey expression, speaking in a stilted, hillbilly-type voice. "Oh, heya supes. Hyuck. I wern't ser'us with the kidnapin' I just borrowed the littl'un to getcher 'tention 'cause this other planet ah knows about is getting all pulped up like by mean 'Ol genocidal robot thingers and we wanted to ask fer some he'p wit it. Hyuck."

Suddenly a new voice enters the conversation. An amused male voice that seems rather mild and yet manages to reach them in the living space from below without any real difficulty.

"You know, you are absolutely right. That would be a pretty terrible way to ask me for my help. But I have to say, intentional or not discussing the problem like this a block from where I work on a Thursday morning does seem to have gotten the job done."

As one they all look down through what to them is the semitransparent floor and see a guarded, but amused, Man of Steel about twenty feet down with a bit of a smirk on his face.

"Now how about you stop hiding and we find somewhere to sit down and talk about your robot problem?"

As he is saying this, a hundred feet down on the street they can see Wonder Woman and a man that Alex doesn't immediately recognize appear and then start drifting up to where Superman is.

Looking shocked enough that a feather wielded by an ambitious gnat could knock her down, Alexis drops back to her seat.

"Well, that happened."

>>>>

Author's Note:
As for DC events, for those that would care? I am not particularly worried about those. This DC universe is a possible future-that-could-have-been ten years after I threw so much weirdness into the mix that nothing would have come out the same anyway.

 

[Inbetweenaction]

Not to diss your emergency aid food boxes, especially since they totally made sense when they were first built. but why would you keep doing the basic food boxes after such a long time, rather than have at least one based on Heroes Feast by now? This is your vecation vehicle, you would want to have nice food...and the bonuses ain't bad.

 

[Datatroll]

Not to diss your emergency aid food boxes, especially since they totally made sense when they were first built. but why would you keep doing the basic food boxes after such a long time, rather than have at least one based on Heroes Feast by now? This is your vecation vehicle, you would want to have nice food...and the bonuses ain't bad.

Click to shrink...

It's a level six spell, basically. That's a hell of a lot of money and build time to throw into an unnecessary luxury.

 

[Datatroll]

Author's Note:
I really wasn't kidding. If you haven't read the other stories there is a hell of a learning curve here. Sorry?

>>>>

Chapter 10
The Pitch.

>>>>

Willow whispers as she sees Alex slump back in her seat. "What do we do?"

Opening one eye, Alexis answers in a normal tone. "You know he can hear that right? From this range even through the floor I'm betting he can tell how bad our diets are by how much resistance our blood has going through our veins every time our hearts pump."

The answer again comes from a smiling Superman, though he is also obviously also getting a little embarrassed. "You would have to be in pretty bad shape, and it would be tough to make out over the traffic below."

Alexis looks at the now blushing Willow. "You'll note that wasn't a denial."

She turns back to a now openly chuckling man of steel. "Give me a moment to disengage our stealth system and open up the back doors for you folks. You'll have to give me a minute to sort out some accommodations, we don't really have anywhere for you to sit."

Two minutes later the truck pops into view. The big old beast was a large vehicle when Alex started on it, and it has only gotten bigger as she has added to it over the years. Now thirty-five feet long by fourteen feet tall and kissing the edge of eight and a half feet wide after the armor plate, the thing barely squeaks under the law as being legal to be driven on the road, and even then she had to get it licensed in another state for height reasons.

Originally based on an old military transport truck, it is a three-axle, ten-wheeled thing as both the rear axles are sporting dual tires to help support the weight of all the additions. Buttoned up, while it is impressively sturdy-looking it doesn't have any obvious weapons. But after scanning the vehicle with his x-ray vision when the invisibility field drops, Superman finds his estimation of the possible danger increasing. While obviously designed to a point for comfort, this thing is both ridiculously stout and far better armed than it first looks like. If this is an RV as it appears to be, then he can only imagine what their combat vehicles must look like.

Wonder Woman and her companion look at the appearing monstrosity in a bit of shock and the man with her whips out what at first would appear to be a small cudgel of some kind that was lashed to his hip in a holster. About two feet long and with an obvious hand grip on one end, the man waves it in a fairly complicated way while muttering something under his breath and then he makes a surprised sound and backs away a bit with his eyes shut. Diana immediately puts herself between her blinded husband and the floating vehicle. Her voice is strong and unhappy.

"What happened?"

Sheathing his wand again at his side, the man rubs his eyes with his left hand and then reaches out to lightly grip her shoulder with his right.

"It's okay. It's nothing they did. I cast a quick spell so I could see magic. It seemed like a reasonable precaution given truckasaurus appearing like that. I just wasn't expecting the whole thing to light up like somebody stuck a phoenix in a blender. Give my eyes a chance to adjust."

Superman nods, the warning clear. These are magic users. And that ratchets the possible danger level even higher. His eyes then widen when he sees the six people in it are now all in the back area where the obvious cargo access is, and they all go from half-height munchkin people to four normal-sized humans and a couple of blue skinned people. Probably aliens, given that they were talking about another planet. Then the door opens and a voice Diana recognizes calls out.

"Come on in, all we have is bench seating and a few lawn chairs unfortunately but you're welcome to it."

In spite of her husband's protesting stammer and Superman's surprised look the amazon swings around to the now opened doors first, and sounds something between shocked and concerned when she does.

"Miss Summers? Is that you?"

Once she can actually see inside, her eyes go even wider.

"Willow? Buffy? What in Hera's name have you gotten yourself involved in now!?"

The two look stunned for a few seconds and then Alexis and Kendra start laughing and it dawns on them what must be going on. Alexis is wiping tears from her eyes while she gasps out the first thing that comes to her mind.

"Is there a Xander here too? I'm making a scrapbook of all the versions of me that Janus didn't decide to un-dick."

The three heroes now being in the truck, the man in the black leather coat, blue jeans, and dark hair starts to laugh. When Superman gives him a nudge, he reels it in but is still chucking lightly when he answers the almighty querying eyebrow.

"Don't you get it? This is a Power Girl, Supergirl situation. I'll bet you Watchtower monitor duty for a month. And in their dimension, SmackTalk got boobed by a god. Hold on, I need to get him on the com. This is too good not to share."

Diana rolls her eyes at her irrepressible husband and smacks him lightly on the back of the head, which seems to accomplish absolutely nothing. Resolutely deciding that he would pay for this later, she turns to Superman. He shrugs.

"Getting ahold of the possible doubles would be a pretty easy way to verify at least some of what's going on. Maybe we should contact the Slayer Council and see if they want to be involved in this?"

The darker-haired man suddenly starts speaking.

"Hey, SmackTalk. Padfoot here. I need you to come down to..." He turns to Diana. "What is the cross street here again?" Rolling her eyes, she tells him. "Did you catch that?

"Sure, bring the clan. You can't miss us. We're hanging out in the back of a truck about a hundred feet off the ground."

He looks around, and while there is some mirth, in the end, he decides that these are not particularly happy people and finally calms down.

"Honestly I don't know how urgent it is yet, but I am betting that sooner would be better than later if you get me."

"Okay, see you soon."

He looks around, still smirking. "They're on their way. All four of them. Might be a good idea to find a better place to do this, it's going to get pretty cramped in here if we stay."

Willow, unnoticed by anybody aside from Alex, has paled dramatically.

"Padfoot? Your real name wouldn't happen to be Sirius Black, would it?"

The man's eyes lose a lot of the laughter they have been twinkling with since this whole thing started.

"Where did you hear that?"

Willow slumps against a wall. "But you died. In the department of mysteries. Didn't you? I thought? I haven't read the books in a while, but I can't imagine I could get that wrong. So confused."

Alex moves against her and throws an arm around the nearly babbling redhead.

"Oh for... Is there any fiction in our dimension that isn't fact somewhere else? First the Justice League and now Harry freaking Potter? This is getting just ridiculous."

The twinkle in Padfoot's eyes makes a bit of a resurgence. "A book? Somebody in another dimension wrote a book about me?"

Willow and Alexis share a look, and then Willow shakes herself as if trying to throw off a chill.

"No, I don't think so."

Padfoot looks at her quizzically. "I thought you just said that they did, and you read it?"

Willow nods, and her eyes go from the near frantic, star-struck look of being about ready to faint and calm slowly back into the technomancer that fears no knowledge and is capable of logical thinking under mountains of stress.

"I did. But given we know of at least two different versions of myself, Xander, and Buffy, it would make sense that there would be different versions of you as well. And the version I read about spent a decade in Azkaban and a couple of years in hiding before he died trying to save his godson from a trap in the magical ministry place. I don't remember all the details, like I said I haven't read it in a while. But if you're alive, then something changed somewhere along the line."

At this point, there is a series of pops and the door to the truck has four more people peering in. Two of them are easily recognizable. Supergirl in a feminine version of her cousin's traditional red, yellow, and blue ensemble and Raven of the Titans in her purple outfit complete with full cape and hood. The other two are less easily recognizable. They are both wearing what looks to be almost black blue jeans and leather jackets, one in the darkest purple and one in almost midnight blue.

The one in blue has a crossed wand and lightning bolt in silver and gold across his front while the other has a collection of symbols that look like something a Sunday funnies page would have a character spew when they stubbed their toe. But for Alex, Willow, and Buffy it's really the lopsided smirk peeking out from under the half mask that gives it away. Alex looks at the ceiling in mostly mock irritation.

"It just isn't fair. The last one gets Slayer-like fighting abilities and an army to back him up, this one gets to be a superhero. What did I get? Endless hours in a workshop making everybody else kick more ass and the chance to look forward to menopause."

Willow softly holds her chin and kisses her full on the lips, even if only for a moment.

"You also got me?"

Melting into her touch, Alex sighs. "Yeah. And I wouldn't change it for anything. But, Superhero. C'mon, I'm allowed to be a little jealous."

SmackTalk sighs and looks at Supergirl. "Is there a support group I should know about for people that have doubles out there? If so I know a few people that might need to get in on that."

Superman has gone from concerned, to curious, to amused and touched by the caring displayed. But finally, he decides that it is time to start sorting this mess out.

"I think Padfoot had a good idea, we need a bit more space for this. Can you follow me? It's only a few miles away and we should get out of sight anyway, we're causing a disturbance on the street."

Guessing that is probably true, Alex nods. "Yeah, that won't be a problem. We can kick on the stealth system and 'Marco Polo' a bit if we lose sight of you." She sighs. "Fair warning, I can drive this thing at decent speeds on the ground, but the flight speed is pretty abysmal. So if it's any kind of real distance this could take a while. I'd just drive it but the truck isn't licensed here." She laughs. "I suppose it isn't a licensed aircraft either, but it seems less likely I'll get pulled over this way."

Superman nods in thought. "It's about fifteen miles. Will that be a problem?"

Alex shrugs. "It's not a problem, the thing can stay airborne pretty indefinitely. It'll just take three hours. If you like one of you can ride with us and direct us there. Or if you give us the coordinates I'm sure Willow can find it and we can meet you there."

Superman offers a boyish grin.

"I could just carry it there if you'd like."

Alexis bites her lip. "Actually, that might work. But you'll have to lift from the bottom, not the top. And I'll have to set a few things differently than they are now to let you do it without just shredding my home. I'm cheating at physics pretty drastically to make this work at all and without things set correctly with the clamps and immovable rods you'd just tear the thing apart trying to get it to move."

Xander's eyes widen at that.

"Wait. Did you say immovable rods? Like D&D?"

Alex rolls her eyes. "Yeah. I am guessing that you played with Jesse and Willow back in the day? Remember Willow's artificer?"

Xander still looks confused, but nods. "Yes..."

Alex shrugs. "Lost a bet with Cordy and had to dress as a girl for Halloween junior year. That plus my costume and Janus being entirely too pleased with his own cleverness made me what I am today."

Xander looks around as his mind starts whirling at the possibilities. Then he smiles wide and big. "Golems?"

Alex nods, a tentative smirk of her own. "On my second one. That bitch Glorificus wrecked my first one while it was buying us time."

Xander all but staggers. "You took on Glory without powers? How?"

Alex is now straight up smirking, nothing tentative about it. "Hey, I said I would have liked to have been a superhero. I didn't say I had trouble making myself useful. Wanna show them the outfits, ladies?"

Buffy and Kendra both have smiles that could brighten a room and snap their fingers in a very 'Addams Family' fashion. Instantly they are covered head to foot in their armor with swords at their sides, hovering a few inches off the floor. Padfoot's cry of pain startles them all until he speaks a 'finite' to cancel his previous spell and stammers. "Merlin's swinging balls, how much magic do you have in that stuff?!"

Without missing a beat, Alex answers. "Enough to hold back hell."

Xander laughs and holds his hand out to shake with an ear-to-ear grin. "Damn right."

>>>>

Four hours later while relaxing on a small picnic site owned by a company that calls itself 'Six Demon Solar' and in the shadow of an enormous mirror that is feeding a collection tower, they are finally all getting up to speed. The Sunnydale natives have explained their current issues and why they are bouncing around dimensions just now, covering the basics of how they know so much about the League members as they do. The two Asari on the other hand, are done pleading their case. Assisted by Willow, who has set up the screen that is normally on the wall in the living area so it is attached to the back door of the truck. Occasionally to look stuff up that is from this dimension by accessing it through her Omni-tool, but mostly so she can play all the videos they have of the problems on Thessia. The local heroes are horrified by what they are seeing, but Superman is the first to respond.

"I'd say you definitely need the help. Does anybody know why these Reaper things are doing this?"

Calia slowly shakes her head. "No, unfortunately. They never made any attempt to talk or negotiate. The only reason we know as much as we do is by putting together fifty-thousand-year-old evidence and even a lot of that is guesswork." She looks at the ridiculously strong person that brought them here. "But could any reason possibly justify what they're doing?"

Diana answers that before anyone else has a chance, her eyes flashing in simmering rage and disgust. "No. No, it could not. If I can help, I will."

Padfoot grins when they look at him, as Diana's husband. "An entire planet of beautiful space babes that desperately need some help? Of course, I'm in." There is a look of shock on a few faces, but Diana just rolls her eyes. After ten years, she can sense the setup for one of his attempts at humor from miles away, and likely could even if they weren't joined at the brain. "Someday I plan to have a son and that sounds like a great place for him to go to college."

Xander shares a look with Raven, who has been introduced as his wife. Then he smiles and nods while Raven quirks an eyebrow.

"I've no doubt we can get a number of volunteers from our various organizations. But do you have any idea what we can do to deal with this? Even if we can deal with the Reapers themselves, this horde of husks will cause uncountable deaths before we will even be able to turn our attention to them."

Alexis sighs. "I know. And to be honest, I know a guy that could help" Glancing at her alternate, she nods. "The other Xander I know, except I don't have the time or resources to sort out his troops. I'll be lucky to get whatever volunteers we find here sorted out before my new beacon is made and we'll be able to go and make the return trip."

Superman looks curiously at the artificer. "What do you need to be sorted?"

Alex shrugs. "The Reapers have some kind of mind control technique. I can defend people against it with a little magic tattoo I designed, but each tattoo takes a few days to make and a few thousand dollars worth of stuff. Plus if I involved him I'd want to get him and anybody or anything he brought to help kitted out. And there just isn't enough time, billions will die before I could even get a handful of them geared up."

Supergirl and the man that was introduced as 'BeatDown' and who until now hasn't said a word look at each other, and the man digs around in a small bag he carries on his hip.

"Well, if time and money is the only worry I might have you covered. And it goes without saying that Supergirl and I will go wherever Smacktalk and Raven do."

Then he holds up an hourglass on a chain.

Willow's voice cracks a bit twice as she tries to speak. "You're Harry Potter, aren't you?"

His easygoing smile is the only response she gets, but it's enough.

Willow collapses, falling against Alex on the bench. Not unconscious, but unable to take anymore just now. Alex laughs a little and holds her tight.

"How does it feel to be ridiculously famous on a dimension you've never even actually been to?"

Harry just looks at the sky and sighs.

>>>>

Author's Note:
So... When I said crackfic? I wasn't kidding. This won't be the most ridiculously over-the-top thing I've ever come across (*cough*TaylorVarga*cough*) but it'll be closer to the mark than I usually ever go.
But then... Reapers. A little crack is not a bad thing under such circumstances.

As always, reviews and likes are the coins of the realm!

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 11
Bare Necessities.

>>>>

>> Harry's home on the outskirts of Las Vegas, that evening.
"Thanks again for putting us up. Can't believe you guys are strong enough to just fly the truck here, that's crazy. Now how does this thing work again?" Alex asks her host.

Harry Potter smiles and hands her the hourglass.

"It's no problem. We're not quite full Kryptonian strength levels but after learning how to reinforce our bodies with magic we're closer than most, that's for sure. And this has been a halfway house for any number of heroes over the years when they needed a place to recover or whatever and despite your complaints earlier, I would say you and yours definitely qualify as heroes. Anytime you want a place to get away from it all, feel free to drop by."

He smirks. "Just be prepared to get stuck in the thick of it from time to time. You aren't the only ones that got the 'living in interesting times' curse."

There is some giggling and chuckling in the room at that. Motioning to the hourglass, he continues.

"That is a time turner. The chain stretches out and anything you have it wrapped around goes back in time an hour for each time you turn the hourglass." He laughs. "We actually had to figure out a new design, when I went to see if I could get one of the old ones they were still caught in a time loop from one of them breaking. This one is made of significantly tougher stuff, so I wouldn't be too worried about that happening again but I'd still be a little careful with it. It used to be that the protocol was no more than five hours back because anything more and your chances of running into yourself or causing paradox go way up, but we designed this room to get around that because we got tired of spending weeks after every major fight making the potions and salves that the League would need for the next one. It wasn't the time that bothered us, you understand. Mostly it was just missing out on whatever else was going on in the interim because we were stuck in the basement hovering over cauldrons."

He smirks. "Based on your complaints earlier I'm betting you can imagine how annoying that gets after a while."

At Alexis' eye roll and nod, Harry gestures to the other side of the large basement room they are in and the thirty-two doors that are there on the other side of a veritable warehouse full of jars and boxes.

"This was the solution we came up with. Beyond each of those doors is a small antechamber with doors to the right and left leading to the other rooms, and there is a pressure sensor on all the floors that will let anybody know on the panel next to the doorknob if anybody is in there. If you try to leave those rooms, it will check the rest of the property and if you are anywhere on it an error message will sound instead of letting you out. Basically, you just don't go into any room that has somebody working in it and you can't leave the room set until you are all caught up and there's only one of you running around. So you spend a day stocking up all the rooms with everything you are going to need and food for and water however long you are going to be working, make sure that the bathrooms have toilet paper. All the obvious stuff. We usually turn eight times to get through all the rooms and most of the potions we're making only take an hour or two. So we can get quite a bit done in a day."

Alex gives a low whistle. "Damn. Yeah, with my eight dedicated wrights, that would give me the full thirty-two rooms done in only four turnings if I had enough of those things. It'd quadruple my output. Hell, I could get all of you set up with your protections tomorrow."

Harry looks around the room at the rest of Alex's crew as well as his own family and looks a little concerned.

"About that. Look, we trust you. Diana verified with the lasso, so we have to either trust you or believe you could fool a tool designed by a god. But even still, I was wondering if you could give me a non-magical picture of the rune design for a friend of mine to look over. It'd suck if it turned out the design that works wonderfully for you, 'protected' me from UV rays or something."

Remembering a bit about how these four got so powerful, Alex grimaces. "That might be a good idea actually. We still haven't figured out exactly why the sun will fry vampires but a sun lamp can barely give them a rash, and the few data points we have would suggest that the sun is basically a holy object. I don't think there is anything in this that would stop it since by its nature it's a protective charm. But it might be for the best to double-check with a local before we get started." She stops, thinking for a minute. "How many time turners do you have?"

Harry shrugs. "In total? Ten. But they can be useful to have on hand sometimes so all the residents have one in a space expanded pocket designed to spit the contents back here via a portkey if it is ever damaged or opened by anybody not keyed in. So it'll take me a day to get them all together. The Lupins are on a couple of days vacation to take their son to Disneyland, and BB and Luna are over hanging with the Titans this week to help out. I'll get them on the coms later to see if they're interested in being involved in this mess and request their turners for the duration. Until then we've only got six, and honestly, I'd play hell getting what I need to make any more plus you can't make them while you are time turning anyway, so cranking one out would take two full weeks even if I could find the stuff."

Alex nods but waves her hand as if dismissing his concerns.

"That wasn't really what I meant. The homunculi don't get bored as long as they are being useful, they don't age, they don't get tired, hungry, or thirsty, and their only restriction is the same as mine in the sense that they can only work on magic stuff eight hours out of twenty-four that they ere experiencing. But one of them could step in the first room after we have stocked everything up and work her way all the way through it, turning as needed. Come out of the last room at the end of the first day happy as a clam. No, I was considering trying to buy one of them from you. It's magic I don't have easy access to and it would be unbelievably useful. In any case, I'd like to borrow one for myself and access your stores here to see if I can finish the repairs to my truck. It's supposed to be able to generate a charge to skip dimensions once a day, and to store up to three. But the system got fried a couple of jumps ago by multiple lightning strikes and I had to make do with some spliced together stuff and a lot of praying and duct tape to get it functional again. I'll also need to build the new beacon and communicator so we can talk to you during and after the current crisis. I can build you something to pay you back, no worries."

Harry laughs and calls out to Supergirl, who has since been introduced as Kara.

"Love, how much are we pulling in on our accounts right now, just interest not business. Say, monthly?"

She gets a thoughtful expression on her face for a moment.

"More than four and a half million dollars. I'd need to look up the numbers to be sure, we're a little low on liquid assets at the moment after we fronted the money to build all those solar farms and water distilling rigs on the coasts of Africa. It set us back a few billion. And like always, most of our assets are invested in our companies anyway."

Buffy is having visions of shopping and shoes, while Willow just leans against the wall and tries to not faint.

Kendra laughs. "Congratulations, Alexis. You officially make less than somebody else I know now."

Harry gives Alex a look and a raised eyebrow and she reddens slightly in response.

"I have a few businesses of my own plus a government contract. We're not anywhere near as well off as you seem to be, but outfitting hunters plus my artwork and tailoring business keeps the bills paid."

Kendra scoffs. "Give it up, we all know by now. Willow can't keep a secret to save her life." She turns to Xander, who has been leaning against a box listening so far.

"She outfits us for free out of her own pocket and she doesn't charge the hunters she helps anymore either unless they're affiliated with the government somehow. There are even a few that she funds their activities outright. For all practical purposes, they work for her as nomadic demon hunters."

Xander gives Alexis another approving grin. "I have to say, so far all the me's I've heard about are freaking awesome. Makes you feel good, you know?"

There is a bit of chuckling at that, and Alex whips out her spiral-bound notepad and a mechanical pencil to take notes on what she'll need. She ends up using more than thirty pages of the small pad, but Kara doesn't even blink when Harry passes it on to her.

"I think we actually have most of this already, if not in here then in the auto, metal, and woodshop over on the other side of the yard. There are a couple of things we'll need to get for you. Not because they're hard to get but just because we don't actually use them." She turns to look at Alex. "Most of it is the pure metals. We mostly deal in alloys and composite materials in what we do. Like I said, they won't be tough to get, but we probably won't have them on hand until tomorrow. Our suppliers are good, but they're not miracle workers."

Alexis rolls that around in her head for a moment and then nods.

"That works. I have everything I need for the tattoos anyway, and plenty to get started on the Beacon, coms, and the dimensional slip drive. So I can deal with that until tomorrow and then we can get started in earnest. How soon can your runes expert be here?"

Harry scratches his head, the wild hair he is famed for becoming even more ridiculously untamed as he does so.

"Unless they have something going on with the League that requires her to be on board the station, she should be available whenever. And given that you made your case successfully with Supes and Diana, I can't really see them holding her back from helping anyway. I can give her a call now if you like?"

At her nod, Harry fiddles a bit with a wrist communicator. There is a slight pause, and Alex settles in to once again hear half of a conversation.

>>>>

"Hey, Stargirl. I need you to put me through to the Librarian. We need her to check something out."

....

"Yeah, it's pretty bad. We are definitely going to try to help, right now we are just getting things put together. An ounce of prevention, pound of cure kinda thing."

...

"Well I can't see them turning down any kind of help, but you'd probably want to take a look at the videos first. This is going to be ugly. Really ugly, even for us. And it's probably going to take a good long while."

...

"Kara and Raven went over some of the basics with the aliens and we are guessing it will be measured in weeks or months to clear the planet that we are likely to be helping first, and there are hundreds of worlds involved."

...

"Yeah. It's an ugly situation. Feel free to spread the word, and I'll see if I can get the videos that showcase a little what we're up against uploaded to the tower so people can see them and decide for themselves. I don't think we'll be turning down anybody that wants to help, but there are a lot of members of the League that probably won't be a good fit for this one. We'll let them make the call themselves."

...

"Well, the bad guys use high-tech guns, explosives and come in hordes. Plus they're backed by space-faring robot ship things that can completely disintegrate entire blocks from orbit. Assume that if you wouldn't take them on an attack to liberate Apokolips, they might be a bad option here too."

...

"Yeah. So... Librarian?"

...

"No problem, and thanks."

He waits for a few seconds and then grins.

...

"Hey, that's not fair! I contact you all the time when the world isn't falling apart!"

...

"Well, actually no. I am not calling because this world is falling apart."

...

"Yes... Anyway, I was hoping that you could pop down and check a runic array that some new friends of ours want to put on our bodies so we won't be subject to the mind control the bad guys use."

...

"She says it's a protection array. I never took runes, and I've only brushed on them since. I figured I should call in somebody that knew what the hell they were doing."

"An hour? Sure. We'll see you then. Are you going to bring Conner and Megan with you? I could see them getting in on what we're doing too."

...

He snorts. "Of course you're invited if you want to go. We could use all the help we can get."

...

"Sure, an hour. See you then."

>>>>

He leans against a handy crate and rubs his eyes, muttering.

"I still can't believe Hermione of all people decided to ring up into a three-way with a Kryptonian and a Martian."

Buffy overhears this and scowls. "I know, right?! You think you know your sister and then out of the blue they're sharing their bed with half the city!"

Xander starts laughing and Willow rolls her eyes. "Or maybe just two best friends she'd had for years and are a team of their own with her?"

Buffy glares at her for a moment and then sighs. "I just don't understand why she didn't tell me?"

Alex moves forward to give the blonde slayer a hug, and once she's there states in a reasonably deadpan voice.

"Buffy, don't take this the wrong way because we all love you to pieces. But why in the hell would anybody go to you for relationship advice?"

Buffy pushes her away to the good-natured laughter of everybody who knows her or her alternate.

So, everybody in the room. She manages a shaky smile, but it is obvious she is still hurt, both by not being told and by not being able to be there for her sister now when she needs her. Curiously, it is Calia that comes forward to offer her a compassionate embrace and the slayer gratefully accepts it.

Alexis clears her throat. "Well, no matter what happens with the tattoo, there are a few other things I need to get done for us anyway, do you mind if I pull those projects out of the portable holes they are getting done in and bring them in here to get finished up?"

Harry shakes his head. "No, go ahead. What are they, if you don't mind my asking?"

Alexis shrugs. "Oh, most of it is the rest of the tattoos that Kurin and Calia need if they are going to be running with us for a while, all they have now is the sizing ones. Basic stuff, really. See the invisible, in darkness, and through magical darkness. A feather fall in case they end up in a bad spot with gravity, a few other odds and ends. I'd also like to get them some weapons and armor squared away while I have access to such a great setup to speed things along."

She offers a cocked eyebrow. "And for the record, I have no problem outfitting any heroes that want to come along. You're right that there are some that might want to stay out of it, but for others, you'd be amazed at the things I can do." She hesitates, then continues. "As an example? I could probably triple the effectiveness and protections on Batman, Green Arrow, or any other basic weapon user type. Not saying that I wouldn't do it if they didn't come along, but they'd have to wait until the immediate crisis is over at least so I had the time."

Raven pops up an eyebrow. "I thought we had handled your time constraint issues?"

Alexis laughs. "When I said the other Xander had an army, what exactly did you think I meant?"

Super-Xander considers for a few seconds.

"Um... Maybe a couple of hundred Slayers? We had this thing with the First Evil a while back and..."

Alexis cuts him off.

"Yeah. We dealt with that idiot differently, but they have the couple hundred Slayers. I've heard a version of that story already. But that's just a drop in the bucket. Somehow he ended up bonded to a Hellhound mutt puppy and through some ridiculousness ended up with another eight of them before too much longer. The bitches have litters of an average of about ten and they crank out a new litter once a year. It's been ten years. Each of his Slayers or any other person attached to his crew that is willing has at least thirty of the things bonded to them at this point and any one of them is a fair match against a slayer with normal equipment. Even with the attrition of losing some in big fights on occasion, he has like eighty thousand of these things performing various duties for his team and stationed at various hot spots."

She shakes her head. "Frankly, I have no idea how he even feeds them. When I get some time I am going to spend a year cranking out field provision boxes geared to demon dogs to try to help them out. They must own a dog food company or something by this point, they'd almost have to. He's actually had to start getting them fixed after their first litter just so he can deal with it. And once I bring their Dawn over to a planet we are trying to help, she can gate them over no problem. You think my inter-dimensional travel is impressive? Ha! She makes me look like a rank amateur."

Xander looks pleased. "Awesome. Our Dawn is pretty good at that kind of thing too. For, you know, obvious reasons."

Alex nods. "Yup. Ours is okay, but she apprenticed under me and spent a lot of the last twelve years or so working on her artificer skills. So she's probably lagging behind a little in that area."

Xander looks a little concerned. "If you don't have the horde of slayers, will your dimension be okay without you?"

Buffy laughs. "We still have Faith and Desia, plus about a dozen more slayers and Dawn's crew. That's not even counting official government backing in at least a third of the world. Alex figured out that getting a Slayer dead for as little as six seconds would fool the Slayer Spirit into moving on and that she could trap it in a force cube with another potential so it doesn't have any other options. One spell to put up the cage, one to painlessly kill the current Slayer for a round, one to get them back up with no loss, no scars, and boom. New Slayer. Every time we come across a potential now we give them the option. If they're interested we get them powered up, trained up, some backup if they want it, and then Alex gears them up. We still have the occasional panic moment when the big players decide to make waves, but for the most part, the bad guys in our dimension are running scared."

She sighs. "If only we could get rid of the Powers that Be Idiots as easily."

Xander frowns. "Yeah. If you figure that one out let me know. They suck here too."

Raven nods resolutely. "Something that we will have to schedule for after the current crisis."

Buffy looks around and smiles. With this kind of crew? The PTB were dead on the vine and just didn't know it yet. Awesome.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 12
Fixing The Drive, Meeting More Locals.

>>>>

Most of the crew is in the house enjoying a chance to relax. Alexis has used the time instead to get busy with things. One Dedicated Wright working on tattoos in the time-turner room and another six outside of it in a few portable holes that she has put together as shop space working on other things.

Even after getting the homunculi their marching orders though, Alex and Willow are not having an opportunity to relax like the rest of the crew just yet. And the redhead is a little irked about it.

Willow wipes her hand against her forehead in annoyance, accidentally leaving a smear of grease. "Do we have to work on the slip drive now? I was hoping to get a chance to go through some of their spellbooks. I might find something useful."

Alex nods absently, recognizing that it is probably a good idea to look into. Her words don't back that up as far as Willow's current desires, however.

"We need to get this thing torn apart tonight so the components that need working on can be getting dealt with. Remember, it's gonna take a week to do the repairs on this. At least a week, maybe longer. And the components have to stay attached to the truck while they're doing it, so we can't use one of their time turners. This has to get started as soon as possible. This, the beacon, and the coms unit. They're essential and we can't leave without them. Honestly, I'd just tell you to go have fun but I don't know what to do with some of these linkages and stuff you used to connect it all to the dashboard. I need you here."

She looks up and sees Willow managing to actually look guilty for wanting a chance to relax. Laughing, she gives her other half a hug.

"It's okay, Wills. We've only got maybe another half hour to get this all pulled apart and then I'll put Green on it. You'll only need to screw with it after that toward the end to calibrate the system and make sure it still hooks up to the truck navigation computer like it's supposed to. Easy peasy. We'll have plenty of time to relax."

As if on cue, there is a call from Buffy on their headsets.

"Hey, Alex. Hermione is here to take a look at the rune thingy whatever."

Alex closes her eyes in annoyance. She just had to be on time. Figures.

"Can she wait maybe twenty minutes or so? I'm in the middle of pulling apart the Slip Drive for repairs and I'd like to get it done so I can get a Wright working on it."

She assumes Buffy says something, but without the microphone on has no idea what it is. A few moments later they can feel some people entering the truck via the open back door and making their way forward. Alexis sighs and stands up. The system is jammed behind the back seats in the cab, the device on one side and the 'battery' on the other with connections that run along the floor under a metal plate to join them to each other and to the controls on the dash.

She stands up because she was on her knees practically kissing the floor and with her ass in the air. While she is in very good physical condition, it's difficult to not be at least somewhat self-conscious when surrounded by Slayers and Kryptonians and blue space babes that might as well have been hand-picked by central casting for the role of 'badass alien seductress' in the case of Kurin and 'alien next door' in the case of Calia. Turning around she peeks down the truck and sees Buffy leading... Well, everybody, it looks like. Though most of them are getting stopped by the small doors that lead into the living quarters.

"Woah! Hey, I don't mind a little company but there is just straight up not enough room where I am for the whole herd. Buffy, anybody too curious to let it go could you hook them up with a sizing choker and send the rest back to the house or something?"

Buffy can't help the smirk but turns back. "Okay, you heard her. We got four chokers, so only four get to go." Calia raises a hand. "Fine, four non-tattoo havers can go."

In the end, they are joined by Raven, Kara, a green-skinned redhead that introduces herself as Megan or if they prefer, as Miss Martian. Then finally a woman who by process of elimination almost has to be...

"You're Hermione Granger, aren't you?" Willow mumbles at the newcomer in barely understandable English. The woman nods, smiling. She'd been told earlier this was likely to happen.

"Indeed I am. I was asked to come and check out a rune scheme or five, but I'll confess to a high degree of curiosity in the system that lets you jump between dimensions."

Alex points out the various systems and their basic function, stopping the abridged version when Hermione is staring at the runes on the battery box in confusion. "Is there a problem?"

Hermione doesn't answer at first, just stares at it. Finally, she looks up.

"Are those runes? Those circle things?"

Alexis stops and rubs her eyes in annoyance. It isn't that she dislikes talking about this kind of thing, she actually loves it. But now is not the time she would have liked. "Yeah. They're from the Githyanki set, I find that language particularly well suited to hopping planes." She gives the scholar in front of her an appraising look. "I really should have seen this coming. What rune sets do you know?"

Hermione proudly lists off a dozen different alphabets and Alex sighs.

"Yeah, I don't know any of those. Gotta love dimensional travel. We pretty much have two options, I can give you the manual that I use when I am stuck or looking for inspiration and you can try to learn it, or I can try to explain what I am doing as I am doing it and you can ask questions. Unfortunately, I don't have time to run a class right now, I need to get this thing fixed and every hour we are stuck here, hundreds of thousands of people are dying."

Hermione nods quickly and after making a short flight over Alex to the other seat opposite Willow, sits and watches with a smile.

"I would love to watch you work for a time. I mean, whole new magical knowledge that I've never heard of before, what could be better than that? Only if you don't mind of course. I'd love to hang out for a few days and ask some questions, and of course, I'd like a copy of the manuals for the rune sets you know, who wouldn't want to know more about runes? It's a fascinating topic. How did your device get broken in the first place? Maybe we can come up with something to stop that from happening again. I'd love to help in any way that I can. In fact, I almost feel as if I should regardless because the League has decided to move on this and I am kind of one of their primary go-to people for magical issues and..."

Megan, giggling, has placed a finger over Hermione's lips.

"Love, you're doing it again."

Looking completely abashed, Hermione nods and the Martian removes her finger. Then kisses her on the cheek. Hermione speaks again.

"Sorry about that. I got excited."

Alex laughs. "Yeah, no kidding. Happens to the best of us. Look, I have these little automatons that can pick this up for me and fix the pieces once I have it disassembled. Can you keep it zipped until then? I'd be happy to chat with you about this all night, but getting my workers on this is essential and I'm up against a time crunch here."

Raven answers for her while wearing a huge grin. "We'll try to keep her under control for you. No promises if you take too long. She's kind of incorrigible when it comes to things like this."

Hermione looks like she might be thinking of denying that, but in the end, realizes that she can't. Everybody here already witnessed her doing it. Instead, she offers an apologetic smile then mimes zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key. Alex laughs and gets back to work, this time explaining things in a running commentary as she goes.

About forty minutes later, she finally has everything disassembled to the point that the Wrights can get at what they need without having to screw with Willow's portion of the system that Alex frankly doesn't understand well enough to touch herself without Willow there to help, much less the Wrights which are working on an echo of her own skills. She stands and cracks her back, having spent now entirely too long squirming around on the floor trying to get screwdrivers into hard-to-reach places.

Turning to Hermione, she raises an eyebrow. "You know, you were kinda right in that we should look into protecting the system better. But maybe I can go it one further. Energy immunity isn't all that hard to put into a schema and it has a twenty-four-hour duration. Using the time turner system they have down there I could have the truck completely immune to heat damage and electrical damage whenever I need to for about two days work in real-time."

Calia, who has been standing behind the kneeling Megan for a while, nods excitedly. "It's known that the main weapons on Reaper ships use molten metal as its ammunition, flung through what we believe is an Eezo powered mass accelerator that has been augmented with an electromagnetic containment field."

Her excitement dies a little. "However, while it would be nice to not be burned alive I am unsure if that would actually make a difference. The shot is propelled at something close to a third the speed of light we think. So I would assume that your home being hit with more than five hundred pounds of molten metal going that fast would likely do enough damage to destroy it anyway."

Hermione and Megan are shocked into silence and Megan speaks for them.

"I think we need to see these videos that are being spoken of as soon as you are able to get an answer to your runes question. It seems to me that there is an awful lot of planning we need to do before we can even attempt this."

Kara nods from her position hovering near the roof of the cab.

"Agreed. But on a lighter note, if you can verify that these tattoo things won't hurt us, I wouldn't mind getting the one that does what this choker does. Being small is kind of fun. And I love the idea of using it to make your travel accommodations more pleasant." She gasps. "My room on the Watchtower could be a two-story condo with one of these tattoos!"

Hermione and Megan smile and Megan nods. "Yes, it can be." She turns then to Alex and Willow while gesturing to Hermione. "We don't actually need the chokers. We're shapeshifters. But we kind of assumed that maybe you didn't want everybody in here, so we just accepted them and ran with it."

With that, they both remove the strip of cloth and hand them over to Willow, who is looking somewhere between amazed and jealous.

"I'm starting to get what you mean, Alex. It's just tough to compete with this kind of thing. I bet the Willow here probably wrecks villains on accident just by breathing. She's probably half Kryptonian and half god or something."

Using a quick charm that she has in an eternal wand, she cleans up herself and then Willow who had also gotten a bit dusty when they were first getting started. Neither notices the impish look that spreads between the locals while they do this.

"Yeah, annoying isn't it? The next Xander I meet will probably be the god of thunder or something else completely ridiculous." She turns to Hermione. "Would you rather dead tree format or are you okay with PDFs?" When she is silent for a second, Alex continues. "For the rune manuals. I can do either, worst case we can print more later. It's not a big deal. You'll need about five different sets to cover the tattoos we use and another if you want to learn about the slip drive."

Hermione nods excitedly. "The PDFs would be fine. I spend half my life these days converting magical texts to a more easily searchable format, so I am quite used to them at this point."

Willow shudders. "Careful with that. We accidentally turned a bound demon loose doing that one time. It was bad news."

Hermione frowns slightly. "Yes, I'd heard something about that. A nasty bit of business. But I am very careful to check everything for magical properties first, so no need to worry.

The bushy-haired woman then makes her way to the door of the cab and simply ghosts through it, having not even bothered to open the door. Willow groans as Megan follows suit to meet back inside for a meal while the rest make their way back to the doors.

"You know, what I already knew was bad enough. That's just showing off." Willow grumps, a little dejected at how badly she is being outclassed.

Alex gives her a hug and kisses her cheek.

"I'm willing to bet that when she was seventeen she didn't backdoor into a hospital computer, hack the router and bounce the thing to the emergency services CB radio controls, use that to activate a robot and use said robot and an elevator to kill three vampires and save a bunch of infants. And I'm for sure that she doesn't have me."

Willow perks up a bit hearing all that, and they hug again for a moment. Then they make their way inside, having decided resolutely to not think about the fact that well over half the people in there probably heard all of this if they cared to listen.

After a wonderful meal prepared by an odd, small creature named Dobby, the lot of them break up into different groups in the house. Alex met Hermione in the library after securing the PDFs she needed on a thumb drive. After less than twenty minutes, Hermione looks up from the screen on her personal datapad and starts comparing the manual to what she sees in the printout of the various tattoos they use. Scratching out her own notes on a scrap piece of paper and biting her lip on occasion brings a smile to Alexis's mouth. When she does finally raise her eyes to Alex she is looking quite intrigued.

"So this protection scheme uses intent and divination based concepts to decide what to protect against, or rather to decide what it can protect against. And assuming I have done everything correctly, I would have to believe that light from a yellow sun actually had intent before this could do anything to stop it."

She stills for a moment, then speaks again with a bit more concern. "That being said, I'd be lying if I wasn't still a little concerned. Can they be removed? Is it hard to do if they can be?"

Alex grimaces a little. "They can be, and it isn't hard but it is hella painful. They pretty much have to be cut out to a depth of at least a half-inch, otherwise, they'll reform when the healing is done. On the other hand, I have magic that can heal almost anything. So it's really more an inconvenience than anything else."

Considering for a moment, Hermione nods and then brings up the other problem she had.

"Also, I can understand protecting from Chaos and Evil. I can even make a case in my mind for protecting from Law. But why on earth do you feel the need to protect from Good?"

Alexis shrugs. "Even the good guys sometimes have fanatics that will think nothing of fiddling around with people's brains if they think it will be for the best in the long run. Needs of the many vs needs of the few kind of thing. I can understand the motivation maybe, but if I am going to damn myself for the benefit of others I want it to be my idea."

Hermione nods and her expression hardens for a moment. Alex thinks she hears the woman mumble something.

"Indeed. Greater good my ass."

She then purses her lips and debates with herself for a few moments, then she nods once. "Then I would recommend that you don't put them anywhere that wouldn't be possible, such as the scalp for example, and aside from that, I will give this my tentative stamp of approval. I'll test the first one when you get it done."

At Alex's questioning look, she smiles. "If I made a mistake, I'd rather it was me that suffered. Besides, it will be good to find out if the effect stays viable on a shapeshifter in other forms before we count on them too much. If I know this crew at all, you'll have seven of them along for the ride before we ship out."

Alex's eyes widen in surprise. "Seven? Seriously? How is this happening anyway, you all seem to have some kind of give a power take a power thing going on and all I've heard so far is something about rings? How the heck does that work?"

Hermione considers how to answer that for a moment and then sighs. "There is too much to get into without Harry here, he's the guardian of the things after all. But the basics are that if more than one person puts them on, at midnight they'll fall asleep together and the rings will start altering all of them until they are all one new species that shares the best in abilities, resistances, and eliminates any weaknesses it can by kludging together fixes from the DNA of the partners. It generally puts you out for about a week, and Harry and his four didn't precisely do it on purpose. But it does seem to have worked out well for them. It also gives you an empathic link with your partners, which in my case because Megan is highly psychic actually presented itself as something of an opt-in hive mind. We can be in it or not at any time, and we spend a lot of time separate. But it does help a lot in combat or when we are trying to learn something new that one of us already knows. But you'll have four more shapeshifters because the Lupins and Beast Boy with Luna all four got together."

Alex groans. "I can't believe I forgot who 'BB' was. Harry used that earlier and it didn't ring any bells."

Hermione smirks with a bit of a laugh.

"Don't tell him you didn't know. He's been trying to get his name officially changed to 'Beast Man' for four years now and the excuse we give him is that the name recognition is important in the field."

Alex cackles a bit and then turns a suspicious eye on the frizzy-haired shapeshifter. "And what's the real reason?"

Hermione rolls her eyes and tries to hold back the laugh but in the end she fails.

"Luna likes it the way it is, and denying her anything seems entirely too much like drowning a sack of kittens for how it makes you feel. So for now we've all caved to her request and are stalling him until he gives up on it or she comes clean."

The laughter is long and loud on that one.

Meanwhile, Calia and Kurin are trying to explain the Asari people and culture as well as their love of Thessia to a whole new group of people with occasional kibitzing from the humans that had been there. Conner, who given his black shirt with the big red 'S' on it and the fact that he looks disturbingly like Superman is pretty obviously the Kryptonian in the mix spoken about in the new people, lays out a question that has been bugging him.

"So, there's no guys on your planet. At all."

Kurin has taken the lead in answering the questions she can because Calia's answers tend to be more confusing than anything else.

"I'm sure there are, but they aren't Asari. They're visitors that got stuck on the planet during the attack or immigrants that married one of us. The Asari are mono-gendered. I've heard it said by other races that have sexual dimorphism that Asari appear female, and for the convenience of other races, most of us respond to the feminine pronouns. But technically, in order to have a female of a species, you need to have a male for the distinction to make sense. And we just don't have that."

She stops talking and immediately starts again when Conner goes to ask the next question. "And goddess help me if you are going to stick to the stereotype that has to immediately ask how sex works with us, I swear I will find a way to make you pay for disappointing me so much. I don't know how yet, but I swear it'll happen."

Conner shuts his mouth and leans back, then comes forward again. "Look, I don't need to know the gooey details. But I'll admit to some curiosity. If you really don't want to get into it though, that's fine. I can fight to save people without knowing how they bump uglies."

Calia smirks and starts talking.

"It's called melding and it involves a biotic powered connection making both partners nervous systems one circuit while we instinctively take from you what our body believes will help our child while we leave the genetic garbage alone. As an example. We would likely want your strength, intelligence, and any of your other random powers that might transfer over if possible. But your social skills and tact we would probably leave alone."

Conner reddens a bit but manages to laugh at himself after Megan reaches out to him. He's gotten better about holding his temper than in the old days. 'But,' he thinks to himself wryly, 'that would likely be another bit of me they would leave behind.'

Eventually, the stress and exertions of the day begin to wear on people and they start heading to bed by ones and twos. Already preparing for the next day in their minds. Except for Alexis. She has one more thing to do. She had to wait this long for the sake of courtesy, but if the clock they gave her was still correct this should be an acceptable time to call. She dials him up on the inter-dimensional com unit and waits to get a response while playing around with the very tired puppies. They'd been given free rein of the fenced-in yard and had a field day rampaging around and stretching their legs fully for the first time in a while. It takes almost four minutes and when she does finally see something on the screen, she absolutely cannot help but laugh.

"Good Lord, how does this infernal contraption even work? Hello?"

Alexis manages to get herself under control and grins at the clear view she has of Giles' crotch. "Down here, big boy. Don't be all pervy now."

Immediately Giles sits down and begins the time-honored glasses cleaning.

"Alexis, I presume? I see little resemblance to my Xander, but you do match the picture that was left taped to the console here. Do you happen to know the password?"

Alex sighs. She can't even get mad, if she'd been in his shoes she might have done the same thing. In fact, she had in a way by making the code for all of her 'Refuge' teleport tokens be 'Alex Rocks.'

"Missy is good, Missy is kind.

Missy will lick you to help you unwind.

Missy will protect a friend in need.

And if you're an enemy your corpse will be feed."

She groans at the smirk on Giles' face. "And for the record, Xander came up with that on his own with some excuse that it would be easier to remember if it rhymed."

Giles nods, laughing just slightly. "I would imagine that he did. The others are out for the day doing various things. I can take a message or you are more than welcome to call another time. Amazing device, this."

Alex bites her lip and then gives the man a rundown of the last two weeks since she had left the hell dimension they had met in, conquered a huge part of, and then hung out helping each other with various things for the month it took her to get the slip drive back to limping. He takes it pretty well, all things considered.

"An entire dimension? Billions of humans? Why? Are these Reaper things demons? Mind control? Alex, I'm not sure what we can offer your efforts against mile-long ships with devastating weaponry such as you've described."

Alex nods in agreement.

"I know. That's why I didn't call you then. I honestly thought the best we were going to be able to do was get a few out so the species didn't die off. But when I showed up here, that opened a few more options and we're going to give it a shot. But Giles, there's billions probably of these husks and we could really use the help cleaning out their ground forces. If you people are willing. Just give me a call back when you've decided so I can plan from there. If it matters to you, I am going to offer my services to anybody or anything you bring that's willing to fight. I can't promise that it'll keep them alive through anything, not with what we're facing. But it'll be a hell of a lot better than whatever they have now, that's for sure."

Giles considers, tapping the pencil he'd been using to scratch out a few notes while they were fresh in his mind.

"I will do that, though..." He sighs. "I can almost promise you that at least Xander himself and forty thousand of his hellhounds will be willing and able. Possibly many more, but at a conservative estimate, I would guess that at the minimum. He is rather predictable in that way."

Alexis smiles. A pure smile, with no snark or skepticism.

"I know."



Author's note:
Thanks for the Reviews and Recommendations! They aren't required, but they do help keep a fanfic author going that's for sure!

Edit: Oh, and yes. The "God of Thunder" jab was directed at the excellent "Thunder over Smallville" series by 'anotherlostsoul' over on Twisting the Hellmouth. I highly recommend it.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 13
Gonna Party Like It's 2187.

>>>>

After a hearty breakfast and a chance for all the residents and current guests to sort out what they wanted to do for their day, Alexis, Hermione, and Calia head down into the time-turner room to see how things are going. Alexis finds herself staring in confusion at the pile of completed items on the bench.

"This should not have been possible. I gave her too much to get done in a day through those rooms on purpose, just so she wouldn't have downtime." She looks at her two new friends. "They hate downtime. They're kind of like those house-elves in that respect."

Hermione looks inquisitively at the bench and the somewhat concerned expression on Purple's face as the homunculus can sense the disjointed feelings from her mistress and is concerned.

"Well, what were the instructions you gave her?"

Alex thinks back and tries to get the wording right.

"Well, behind each door is a small antechamber with doors to the other antechambers on either side and then another door behind it that has a small, ten by ten work area with an attached bathroom in case you need it. I had the Wrights load up a portable hole with everything we are going to need for the first batch of tattoos, as well as everything she'd need to start getting the armors ready for Calia and Kurin. Plus some measurements I saved from when I was doing some work for Hell-Mutt-Xander when we were hanging out and I put together a few basic armor sets for some of his different animals. I told her to follow the schedule, go into the first one, work eight hours, load up the hole and travel back nine, exit back into the antechamber and go back another nine, move to the next antechamber over and go back another six, then go into the next workroom and work on non-magic stuff until she could work on magic again and repeat the process. When she got to the last room, work on nonmagic stuff until it would let her out."

Hermione stares at Alex for a few seconds and then shakes her head.

"So you told her to work eight, and then go back twenty-four, basically. Then she was stuck working nonmagic for sixteen hours, then eight magic, and then repeat. Good so far, but then the question becomes, did you tell her to stop when she got to the end, or did she just come around to the beginning and start again when it would let her back in? There are twenty-four hours in a day, after all, and it has been more than sixteen since you let her get started unless I am very much mistaken. So each room is potentially three days of work with a time turner, and there are thirty-two of them."

Alexis' left eyelid twitches. "Three months? I can get three months of work out of a day doing this? Holy crap."

Hermione nods, her eyes sparkling. "Potentially more. The time turner can stretch around multiple people. You could just as easily send through all eight, assuming that they would have enough room in there to work. I've had the opportunity to get quite good with the concept back in the day. It can be a bit annoying to wrap your mind around at first, but once you have it all sorted time turners are a wonderful tool, assuming you are careful with it anyway. I do find it interesting that you have built minions that require no particular upkeep. That would imply that the only thing really holding back your production capabilities using one of the time turners is the amount of materials you have on hand and the number of little rooms in the chain. Fatigue, biology, and mental stress not being part of the equation your potential seems like it could be expanded exponentially."

Alexis is just shaking her head. "I... I have so got to get myself one of these things. Just unreal." She looks up at the other two after giving Purple a warm hug and reassuring her that she had done nothing wrong. She does some quick math in her head and finds herself sitting to take care of the shock.

"So, one of them can get ninety-six days worth of work done in a day, and all eight could get..." She starts mentally calculating and Calia fills in the blank using her normal, chipper tone.

"Seven hundred and sixty-eight days. Let me think... In Earth terms that would be... Two years, one month, and seven days worth of production every twenty-four hours of real-time."

Alexis is completely silent and immobile for about twenty seconds. Then she whips out her notepad again, muttering something that Hermione can't make any sense of even being able to hear it clearly.

"This is gonna push me so negative I'll never level again. But it's so worth it."

After updating her list and going upstairs to pass it off to Kara, she is half expecting the beautiful Kryptonian to throw it back in her face. At Alex's best estimate there is close to sixty million dollars worth of supplies on it at modern prices. Instead, she just gives Alex a curious look.

"What changed? This is significantly more than you expected to need yesterday. To the tune of fifty times as much."

Alex just points at Hermione and mumbles incoherently. When Kara looks at the stammering artificer, Hermione giggles.

"She just had a quick lesson in math. Eight homunculus that can all fit into the time turner, plus thirty-two rooms, plus a possible three shifts per room... it caught her a bit by surprise."

Kara just snickers. "Well, we can have most of this here by tomorrow. There are a few things that might take a couple of days, but we'll go collect it in person if it is going to take any longer than that."

Alexis' eyes widen as she considers that the Kryptonian had offered no arguments and was willing to just fill the tab. After a few seconds, she just blurts it out.

"For the love of all that is shiny and golden, how much money do you people have?!"

Harry and Xander both crack up laughing, and Raven offers a modest smile and answers. "In ready cash? A few hundred million is all. But there are billions in gold that Harry has in his vaults as well as the income from our random business ventures. When he was explaining the money we had coming in before he was only talking about the interest on his mundane accounts here in the United States. Please understand, your needs will not so much as inconvenience us unduly."

Slowly, Alex starts to grin. Then smile. Finally, laugh out loud. Then she stops, as though somebody had pulled the cord. She pulls out a second notebook and starts making quick notes, stopping occasionally to verify from the self-updating manifest that Harry uses in his workshops to verify what is actually available now. As she is doing this, the Dedicated Wrights are hurrying about, too and fro, as they restock the portable holes of everything they would need for the next three months of construction time. Finding that everything that she needs to get started is actually already in here, she finishes the page, hands it off to Green, and sits down. All told it takes nearly fifteen minutes.

"One negative to this is that I'll be doing the work on the truck myself to get the best use out of the opportunity. But I can't let this go. It's too good. Now let's see if these tattoos work on you all."

Meeting back at the worktable, she hands the first one to Hermione for inspection. After a few seconds of comparing what she has in her hands to the print-off from before, she nods.

"Looks right, and it is certainly magical. Is there a spot better than others to put this?"

Alex shakes her head. "Not this one. Any of them that run automatically and all the time it doesn't matter. There are a few that you have to access deliberately and touch to activate, and those ones are generally best on the forearm we've found."

She nods, considering. Then hikes up her shirt a bit and lowers her jeans some, turning away from Megan after handing her the piece of paper with its raised magical inks.

"I assume that this works as a temporary tattoo? Press against flesh and hold for a bit?"

Alex nods. "Aside from the temporary part, yuppers."

Hermione nods then. "Megan, if you would do the honors? Right in the middle of my back and just above my tailbone would be great."

After this is done and the little rainbow of color happens, she leans against a wall and seems to be trying to feel if anything is different. She walks outside into the bright sun and smiles. Then she becomes a cat, and while it seems at first to have gone away when Alexis puts on her artificer's monocle headpiece she can see it easily enough.

"It's under the fur, but it is still there and doing what it needs to do. Even if you became something that did manage to disrupt it somehow, it's designed to reform after trauma unless the entire thing is removed. I think you'll be fine."

After that is an hour applying finished tattoos to people, and then Alexis gets her personal tools together and starts working on the truck. She has some long days ahead of her.

>>>>

>>Eight Days Later, 2 PM.

Alex is tightening the last of the bolts to hold the battery housing together and gives Willow a thumbs up.

"It's all you, baby. My end is pretty done, I think. Let me know if there's any issues. I'm going to see about a shower, I feel like a sweat rag."

Willow nods and gives a giggle.

"So far so good. The system seems to be charging up correctly and there are no issues in the lines. The calibration will take a few hours though. It's automated, but I should be here in case something goes wrong."

Alex nods and gives Willow a kiss on the back of the neck before she walks back to the shower in the cargo area and locks the doors so there won't be any surprise guests. It's been a fantastic eight days. Almost sixty years' worth of crafting accomplished when it was all said and done. They had actually made it a point on the second day to triple the number of little rooms just to make it all possible.

But she has enough protection, sizing, and the various other types of tattoos for any biped interested in coming along and has created collars with enchanted tags to handle the hellhounds. Making it a neck item rather than the tattoo halves the build time and cost, though even still there are so many to build that she ends up putting together only about a twenty before she instead decides that this is just not tenable. Forty thousand is just too many to equip like this and expect it to ever get done.

So instead she builds a set of the upgraded version that includes a radius of effect. The circles against evil, chaos, law, and good are all built into one device. Installed on the truck, all the Hellhounds will need to do is be close to the truck at least once every few days to a week so the effect can purge the Reaper crap out of their system and they should be fine. Then she went ahead and doubled down on the idea by creating and installing a 'Vigorous Circle' emitter near the back doors and under the floor of the cab, suspended a few inches above the skid plate. These will offer massively increased healing to up to six creatures at a time up to fifteen feet away and will auto-target the most hurt within their range. Then she built into the armor of the truck itself permanent invulnerability to heat, electricity, and corrosive effects. Because why the hell not?

After that, she made all the same modifications directly to the shuttle as well. Because she could.

Sadly, almost all the rest of the time went into building the forty thousand suits of hell-mutt armor to the various specifications by body type and then enchanting them to just enough of a bonus that they would be self-sizing as well as comfortable to wear and sleep in for the duration of the campaign.

There were just not enough thumbs available to remove and put back on that many suits of armor every day, so this much is essential.

Lastly, the final insult was that after running all the math she ended up spending more than the last ten years of build time just making magical field provisions boxes designed to feed the hell hound horde.

To say that the local magic users were astounded at the idea that her magic could actually produce edible food was something of an understatement. Apparently, that is a thing that can't be done by them.

As she is now down to likely her last few days she can build before they need to get the plan moving she considers what she will need to try to keep this rabid rate of production up while on the move. It would be beyond foolish to assume that she wouldn't need to do so.

Hell, she'll need to make probably dozens of the protection circle emitters alone if they were going to have any chance in hell of salvaging the Asari military so they could help. And each of those takes over two months of build time on its own. In the end, she decides that one way or another before they are done she is going to need a ship. Either one the Asari are willing to let her use or one she can beg, borrow or steal from somebody that would be big enough to work out of.

After finishing her shower, she gets dressed and prepares for the meeting tonight. All the major players that are committing to this action will be there, though of course nobody is being coerced. If they change their minds then they are welcome to back out.

But from everything she has read, she is rather expecting that most of them will be coming. Thank the goddess.

Alex shakes her head and smiles at her own thoughts. Now the Asari have gotten her doing it, even if it is only in her head.

>>>>

Far away in a place not accessible by mortals or demons, a man with two faces sends an illusory image to a blue-skinned goddess that has done nothing but cry in impotent attempted denial for months. The illusion is of the man himself. Smirking out of one face while the other merely says:

"You're welcome."

The blue goddess looks completely confused and bordering on rage until she investigates what the strange two-faced god was talking about and then she feels it. A new worshiper of sorts. Enough that she is able to center in on her and learn about her situation at least.

What she finds doesn't make her happy, there has been far too much death for that to happen for quite a while. It does however cause a rather grim smile to spread across her face all the same.

>>>>

The introductions alone take a while after the various heroes arrive. Harry has the unenviable duty of seeing to it that everybody knows who everybody else is, and takes the time to go through the list when everybody has arrived that is going to be coming.

Superman, of course.

Wonder Woman and Padfoot apparently come as a pair these days.

His own family of himself, Kara, Xander, and Raven.

The Lupins along with BB and Luna.

Hermione along with Superboy and Miss Martian.

Robin and Starfire show up for the meeting and claim they'll be going. Which makes Alexis worry a bit for Robin until she realizes just how close he is sitting to Starfire and the slightly darker look of his skin than she might have expected. Then she just rolls her eyes. These rings get around, it would seem.

Finally, Jon Stewart of the Green Lantern Corps. Who says when he is introduced that when they are on-site if it turns out that things are as bad as they say he may be able to get more assistance.

Then of course there is herself and her crew. While all these heroes are polite, no question, there are a few raised eyebrows at them. Finally, Harry has a chance to get to the meat of what they are gathered here for.

"Is everybody here that is coming? Are we waiting on anybody else? No? Good. First, thank you for being here. I've prepared a video built out of clips from the war front as of nine days ago. We expect it will have gotten worse since then. Possibly a lot worse. Please hold questions until the end."

An hour later, the scenes of absolute horror stop flickering against the wall and Harry turns off the projector.

"Direct your questions to these folks here." He motions to Alexis and her group, sitting off to the side. "You now know almost as much as I do, so asking me won't be worth much."

Starfires' voice comes from the far side of the room, filled with emotion and obviously quite distraught.

"Why are we not leaving today, exactly? This is... This needs to be stopped. At any cost."

Alex nods. "I totally agree. The problem is that my Slip Drive, the engine I use for traveling between dimensions, got damaged a while back. I have the repairs done finally, but I need to wait three days to have a full charge on the unit. And since I can't be sure what we'll find when we port somewhere new, it's always nice to have the ability to leave quickly if I have to."

Robin raises a hand and when Alexis motions to him puts it down and speaks.

"I'm more concerned about this mind control thing. Not sure I like the sound of suddenly finding myself part of the problem."

Alexis offers a quick grin. "Yeah, that was my first issue too. I have protections in the form of a tattoo I can give everybody. If you really hate that idea for whatever reason, I also built an area of effect version into my truck. As long as you visit it once every couple two or three days, I don't see a serious problem. Whatever they are doing, it seems to take a while and the protections clean it out of you." She gets a look of distaste for a moment. "Be advised though that the process of purging if you let the stuff build up in you is both disgusting and painful. If I were you, I'd just go with the tattoos."

The Green Lantern is looking troubled.

"You say this is happening galaxy-wide? Is there any idea how many of these Reaper things there are? If they are organic or just machines? Where they come from? Why they're doing this?" He looks up at the Asari specifically. "It's just so massive a problem that it's difficult to believe that it truly exists."

Kurin nods. Annoyed, but aware that ten years ago she'd have had the same attitude.

"Yes. Galaxy wide. The Earth of our dimension was the first place hit actually, and they are on the far side of the galaxy from Thessia. It didn't take it long to spread though, and now the bastards are everywhere."

She sighs. "We don't know for sure how many there are. We know it is more than six thousand and our analysts believe it is less than ten thousand. But whether or not there could be another million hiding in dark space where these ones came from I couldn't tell you."

She thinks for a minute. "I don't know if anybody has any idea if they are their own thing or if there is something onboard piloting them around. The impression I have had from how they move is that they are big machines that pilot themselves, but I won't be able to verify that with facts. And as to why? Nobody has any idea. All we know is that this is a cycle that has been going on for millions of years, we believe. They come back in and destroy any civilization, commit genocide on any people that have managed to figure out space travel. We have evidence of the last one, fifty thousand years ago, and the clues they left behind lead us to think they had found clues from before themselves. How far back it goes we don't know, but rumor has it that they found evidence the Reapers use the liquefied remains of a species to create the core of each new Reaper. Given that our cycle has maybe a dozen races that will qualify for extermination and there are at minimum six thousand reapers, well..." She looks directly at the Green Lantern. "That is an awful lot of cycles."

Beast Boy, easily recognizable from his short stature and the green skin as he is in uniform and not hiding, sticks his hand up but just starts talking as soon as Kurin is done.

"What is up with the techno-zombies? What are they?"

Calia answers, her chin held high as she stoically tries to stop tears from falling for those she has known that are lost. She can't watch that video without it hitting her right in the gut.

"They are us. They are what happens to you if the husks manage to take you and impale you on one of their spikes. We called them 'Dragon's Teeth,' a phrase coined by the humans there. But they are us. The sentient species of our galaxy, repurposed by the Reapers to work towards the undoing of everything they ever fought for while they were alive."

The silence after that is almost deafening and lasts for over a minute until Conner speaks.

"Assuming we can stop the Reapers, will that stop these husk things? Based on what you showed us there must be billions of them."

Alex nods. "There are. But even if the Reapers dying doesn't knock them out, it really shouldn't matter. I am bringing in another force that will be dedicated to killing husks that should be enough to make quite a dent in them, but beyond that even. If we can get rid of the Reapers and I can start reversing the indoctrination on their people, the locals can handle hordes of these husks. The only reason the husks are as effective as they are right now against the established military is that it's tough to mount an effective defense when your bases and heavy equipment are being destroyed from space constantly and you can't trust anybody. If we can give them a chance, I believe they can make it happen. But for that, we absolutely have to destroy these Reapers. Destroy them and get every scrap of them we can off-planet. Toss it in the local sun or something. Without some knowledge of exactly how the indoctrination works I sure as hell don't want to leave any bits and pieces laying around."

There are a few nods around the room as people consider that.

Remus Lupin glances again at the wall where the vision of horror most recently was and then turns to Alexis who has been doing the bulk of the talking so far.

"Do we have any idea what it takes to actually destroy one of these Reapers?"

Kurin breaks in here before Alex can respond.

"To the best of my knowledge we've only ever destroyed two of them and technically, one of them was killed mostly by its own stupidity in trying to take on the biggest Thresher Maw the galaxy has ever known while it was on the ground. The other one tried to start the cycle a few years ago. Just one of them wiped out nearly the entire Citadel fleet, the largest single armada in the galaxy and composed of all the races that sit on the council, three of them at the time. One almost beat us before we could take it out. So I can promise you that it takes a lot."

Luna breaks in, her soft and more than a little spacey voice filled with curiosity heavily at odds with the rest of the conversation.

"Might I ask what a Thresher Maw is?

Calia nods. "At its most basic, it is a worm. A voracious, territorial, and carnivorous worm. This particular one, as Lieutenant Kurin has mentioned, happens to be the largest on record. I believe it is something in excess of five miles long or was the last time anyone got a good enough picture to make an estimate."

Tonks, Remus' wife is looking more than a little downcast.

"Honestly I'm not sure how useful we can be against something like that." She motions around her to Remus, BB, and Luna. "We can become some pretty impressive things, but dealing with these Reapers? There's nothing big enough or tough enough to do it." She laughs, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Unless we can meet this Thresher Maw of yours and the attempt to change into something that big doesn't kill us."

Alex shrugs. "Honestly, I expect that would be true of most of the heroes. I am guessing that's why the bulk of what showed up tonight were the heavy hitters. But if you want to come we can use all the help we can get, particularly in trying to save lives and clear out infested areas so we can hopefully start creating a place that people can actually survive until we win this thing."

Superman shakes his head at this and speaks from the far side of the room where he had been pretty quiet up to this point.

"Actually, that isn't entirely true. When we explained to the League in general terms what was going on a few days ago we had quite a few more volunteers than this. But it was decided that stripping the defense of Earth completely was a bad plan, and so a large number of people, including many of our 'heavy hitters,' are staying here to keep things under control while we are gone." His sympathetic gaze falls on the Asari, and he nods respectfully. "I know in your place I would want everybody able. But we have responsibilities here, and this world has problems of its own. I'm sorry we can't offer more right now."

There is silence again for a few seconds, and then Harry speaks.

"So, can I assume that everybody here is still going? Raise your hand if you're in." At the sight of a roomful of raised hands, he offers an encouraging grin. "Thank you, on their behalf and mine. Now we need to lay our cards on the table and think strategy. We leave in just another three days, so there isn't a whole lot of time." Then out of the blue, he smirks. "Oh, and anybody here that can't shapeshift on your own? Be prepared to gain a new ability via Alexis here. The accommodations for the mission will have you three feet tall."

The looks they get at that from the uninitiated are downright hilarious.

>>>>

The last three days before departure are a lot of strategic planning for the heroes, and a lot of last-minute panicked building for Alexis.

Backpack weapon racks designed to be used with their new armor for Kurin and Calia as well as modifications to the rest of the crew's armor to accommodate the same are finished. These include both the 'Chill Metal' enhancement and an area protection circle scheme that runs constantly. All the armors they wear now have the same enhancements that the slayers are used to, and any of the items that are not vampire specific have been duplicated as well. In addition, Calia then installs their Asari force barriers and Omni-tools right across to the new armors as well as doing the same modifications to the armors worn by all of Alexis' crew. With her assistance, of course.

Kara and Megan gave her a hand installing waterproof sun lamps in the cargo area that are powerful enough to rejuvenate a Kryptonian. She's told they are effectively the same thing they use on the Watchtower.

The full-size bunks in the back are shortened to half-length and three-quarters height, and then the number of them increased to twenty all told, four sets of bunks, five high each with a modest-sized footlocker at the end of each one and blackout curtains for privacy. The shower area is walled off into two cubicles on one side that include a toilette and sink each. With one switch on a wall that would activate a silence in the center of the room, the prospect of sleeping in there is somewhat less daunting. Overall not luxury accommodations, but not terrible either. Something akin to a 'summer camp from hell' was the comment from Super-Xander when he saw it.

And finally, disappointingly, it is decided that for a while at least they will have to leave the puppies here. They'll be looked after by Dobby and his family of seventeen, as well as the elder Tonks, Andromeda who has come over to take care of the Lupin's child. Teddy, who is just turning eight and has decided that some time to play with Dobby's many children and these four crazy awesome puppy dog things might just be the best thing ever.

Finally, the day of departure arrives and when all of them have put on the tattoos that they needed on an individual basis Alexis gets one last chance to talk to them before they go as they are all finding ways to be comfortable in the unfortunately now rather cramped living space.

"Okay. The first part of this is going to be all us. I need a beachhead on the planet so I can go get the rest of our troops and we'll have somewhere to put them. It'll take a bit to get this squared away I'm sure, so I am guessing the first three to five days will be pretty crazy. Assuming that we can get a base to work out of sorted, getting everything else there will take a couple of days as well. I'm told opening portals the way Dawn does is fairly taxing and more than a couple a day can knock her out, so I'll be going to her, picking her up, coming back here so she knows where it is and can pick up the armor and provision boxes for their troops, and then going back to our base location. After that, she can bring manpower and equipment in by the truckload, but she needs to see the location first or have a connection with something that is there."

She stops for a second to gauge their reaction. Nothing sticks out as bad, so she continues.

"My hope is that the base we were in before we fled here is still there and hasn't been destroyed. If so it'll make a good spot to work out of. I've spoken with the pilot that has my beacon on her ship about twenty minutes ago, and she says she's parked and waiting for us. So unless somebody has any questions?"

After a few seconds of silence, Alexis nods.

"Hold on to something for the trip, it isn't always a pleasant ride."

>>>>

Author's note:

Okay then. Yes, I'm done stalling and being impressed with my own cleverness in breaking the rules of my world into tiny little pieces.

For now at least.

Next chapter we get started on the war proper. Sorry that this one was a little dry, I really needed to just get the ball rolling and after fighting with it for a while, this was the best I could come up with to get the explanations of just how broken Alexis is getting out there for the masses. Call it a failing of mine, I suppose.

Lastly, because it came up before in comments when I posted elsewhere? In the Mythos I am employing, sentient beings make gods through worship and devotion, not the other way around where gods make sentients. So whatever inspired the Asari 'Goddess' is irrelevant for the story.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 14
First Contact.

>>>>

The feeling that Alexis and her crew have come to recognize of being flushed down the toilet to the accompanying roar of B-17's trying to hum death metal tunes is all new to the heroes, and for a moment there is concern among many of them that they had somehow gotten it wrong. Then a couple of things become obvious. First, the gravity is less here. And second, the view out the windows is decidedly different.

The gray of ship-grade steel surrounds them. Broken only by the bright blue trim that somebody has painted on the walls in an effort to spruce the place up it would seem. The gravity seems strong enough, three-quarters Earth normal at least. This indicates to Alex that the nameless Asari pilot that took her beacon and communicator to play keep away from the Reapers was as good as her word and has managed to land somewhere briefly to wait for them. In fact, Alexis can see her coming across the cargo area of the small freighter she operates now and she doesn't look particularly happy. Rapping on Alex's window with the back of her knuckles results in Alexis having to open the door.

She just couldn't find a way to get the massively thick bulletproof glass to seal up all airtight and vacuum resistant with opening windows. And yes, it was highly annoying thank you very much.

The pilot doesn't give her a chance to speak, overriding right out the gate any chance she might have had to get a word in edgewise.

"You said you had found something that could kill Reapers. I'll admit I wasn't sure what I expected, but you to show back up in this piece of trash again wasn't it. Care to explain?"

Alex smirks and points behind her, where the superheroes are starting to come out the back of the truck and walk around.

"It's not what I found. It's who I found."

The Asari looks legitimately confused for a moment and then turns back even angrier.

"Who? What do you mean, who? People with worse fashion sense than red sand addicts from the Omega slums? I've spent nearly two weeks ducking Reapers on this fool's errand and you came back for a party?"

Xander, listening in from the back whistles low.

"Wow. She's a feisty one, Alexis. You gonna add her to your harem?"

Alexis looks at him like he has lost his goddamn mind.

"Excuse me, my what?!"

He rolls his eyes. "C'mon. Four women together, 'vacationing' yearly to relax away from the pressures of saving the world all the time... Honestly, she looks pretty stressed. I think you should let her in. You're already looking at two other Asari, complete the four-pack and you could play teams, blue vs. pink!"

Buffy is coming out now and gives Xander a look of instant death by aggressive castration. It is a pretty impressive look, but she loses a few points when Calia walks up next to her and, completely innocently, throws an arm around her in a half hug. If anything, this enrages the pilot even more.

"You brought them back?! Why! Why would you do that, knowing what is at stake here?"

Without warning, a booming crash comes from outside somewhere. Not right next to them, but far too close for comfort. The Asari sprints back to the doors of the cargo area, screaming as she goes.

"Goddess damn you!"

Alex is running after her but losing ground quickly. Not so much because she is slower but because she is mentally explaining to the Wrights how she wants the truck tied down in case they are about to leave. When she makes it to the cockpit she can see that the Asari is frantically trying to get things set for takeoff. Around the ship there seems to be a stone tunnel of some kind. Given how smooth the walls are and the uniform nature of the color, Alexis is betting it is a lava tube from some ancient eruption. But ahead of them, where they can see out, she is getting a good idea of what the problem is.

She doesn't know where they are in the galaxy. But unless she is very much mistaken, the slightly orange tint to the sky means it probably isn't Thessia. But the Reaper they can see that is wading through a small city a few miles away is a scene straight from the videos of the invasion there. Destroying everything as it goes and leaving in its wake a disorganized mob of terrified civilians that will no doubt be easy prey for any husks that might be coming.

Alex yells as soon as she realizes that the woman is planning on flying them away.

"Stop! Wait a second. Let my friends see if they can do anything first."

The pilot looks at her as though she is reasonably sure that is the most retarded thing she's ever heard.

"Unless the Reapers are offended by bright colors worn by idiots, I don't think they'll be able to do anything, now get off my bridge!"

Instead of moving, Alexis points ahead. "Wait, look!"

To her shock, the Asari can observe three of the people she had seen in the back are already there, and additionally, the dash has just started flashing a warning light saying that there is an airlock open. The three there are flying. Flying really fast, and they appear to be attacking the Reaper with red beams from their eyes?

She stops trying to take off and instead uses the onboard computer to enhance the image on the screen that takes the place of where a weak spot like a glass or plastic window might.

A young man with a black t-shirt on is the first to decide to close with the thing. Granted, as Reapers go this is one of the smaller ones. Maybe less than a quarter of a mile long, intended she imagines to do exactly what it is doing. But even still, what she sees next absolutely astonishes and terrifies her, even as she finds herself cheering for the man.

He had flown up to the Reaper, eyes blazing with energy the entire way, and punched one of the legs at the base where it connects to the body. In spite of what she imagines physics would suggest, the leg cracks at the point of impact and hangs limp.

His second swing from his left hand less than a second later causes it to break off.

It broke. The fuck. Off.

The green-skinned one is instantly under the falling limb, lifting off with it and launching it skyward once she has enough speed. The onboard virtual intelligence does as it is meant to and plots the trajectory of a large space-borne object in her vicinity.

It will impact the local star in approximately a year and two months.

The last is floating above it, her hair crackling with energy as she waves a stick around over it. Her mouth moves, but nothing can be made out here. Especially now, as the shuddering boom of the first impact, and the crack of the limb breaking off from the second has just made it the six miles to her hideaway.

Then these three are joined by the rest, and she is reminded of what happens to wounded creatures that get too close to a den of hungry verran. These colorfully dressed individuals pick it to pieces. In a few minutes, they are hauling the last of the bits into space and the one in blue, red, and yellow is making it a point to launch them himself.

Her virtual assistant lets her know that these pieces will reach the star in less than eleven days.

They don't stop there, however. The dark-skinned man uses some kind of incredibly powerful biotic ability to rescue the inhabitants from their various predicaments. Though she can't explain why his biotics are green, of all things. He is joined by a handful of the others, destroying husks as they see them with no more worry than any normal person would when stepping on an insect.

Curiously, given what she has already seen, it is when four of them change their shape into dragons, actual four-legged, winged, fire-breathing dragons that have wingspans of more than a hundred feet each that she finally speaks to Alexis.

It might be rude to talk to the woman without turning to look at her, but she cannot get over the fact that two of these dragons are tearing apart one of the Reapers 'harvester' style husks. Enormous flying creatures that they have perverted into transports and gunships.

"Who are these people?"

Alexis can't take her eyes off of it either and a huge grin spreads across her face as she watches the city below become less of an active conflict and more of a cleanup and relief effort.

"They're heroes from another dimension, and they offered to help."

Though they can feel the rest of Alex's crew crowding in behind them, there is no more speaking. No one wants to disrupt the scene, for fear that it will somehow fail to be true were it disturbed. After a few minutes, Alexis nudges the woman. "I am going to need to get down there soon. If you don't want to fly, then do me a favor and open up the main cargo bay doors so I can get out with my truck."

As if slapped awake the startled woman jumps and then merely nods and hits a few buttons on the console, causing the small freighter to gain altitude and slowly make its way over to the settlement.

Calia's voice comes from somewhere behind them. "Where are we, exactly?"

The pilot glances back quickly and then looks back at her screens.

"We're on Gideron. It's a small, relatively new mining colony on the edge of Asari space. I brought a shipment of food for the people here because with normal shipping disrupted they were in a bad way. The colony has decades to go yet to be self-sufficient. When I went to leave, that Reaper hit atmosphere and I had to go to ground." She's silent for a few seconds. "I am genuinely uncertain that I would have been able to get away, so your timing was most appreciated. Sorry for my earlier outbursts, I was... Not in the best frame of mind when you arrived."

Buffy smirks. "No worries. Eminent death does that to most people."

There is the sound of a light smack on Buffy's armor and Kendra giggles. "Be nice!"

Kurin looks around as they get closer to the city and realizes that there is still a strong husk presence in it. The heroes are fast and powerful, but there are just so many of the techno-zombies around that it will take hours, at least, to root them all out. When she starts pointing to the screen and highlighting some of the trouble areas she sees, Alex speaks up.

"Okay, I think it's time for us to get busy. You can let us off anywhere around here, we are going to be a mobile aid station I think. I'll kick on the healing auras on the front and back as well as the protection circles and we'll try to save some of these people." She looks down at the Pilot. "Oh, and I have a thing we need to stick on you somewhere. It stops the mind control that the Reapers use. But just so you know, there is a fair chance that you have already been compromised to some degree and the protections can hurt like a son of a bitch while they are purging that garbage from your system. So you'll want to be laying down, probably."

The Asari lands the ship, and as Alex is heading back to the truck with everybody else, she speaks.

"I can't afford to have my ship getting damaged, so I am going to make for a low orbit as soon as you're off. I'll pick you up when you transmit the request. Now, what is this thing I need to protect myself from the Reapers?"

A few minutes later, having accepted the tattoo paper and let them off, she is as good as her word and takes off. In moments she is too far away to be seen by the naked eye. But according to Willow's new sensor package she has done just what she claimed. A geosynchronous orbit, about four thousand miles up.

To the surprise of all of the crew aside from Alexis and Willow, they see that the four primary weapons are already being manned.

By Dedicated Wrights in specialized armor. It doesn't allow them to fly when it is completely buttoned up. Their wings need to be folded into the little brown-colored beetle shell-like casings on their backs. But between wearing the armor and being buckled into the gunnery positions with their new strength increasing belts and dexterity increasing gauntlets, they are plenty strong and quick enough to use the weapons. At Buffy's look of incredulity, Alex answers the unspoken question.

"No, they're not particularly good shots. But they aren't bad either, and the gunners don't have to be that accurate considering what the enhancements on the guns do. Besides, I am expecting that I'll need at least you and Kendra checking buildings for survivors. Given that this is an Asari colony, it'd probably be best if all four of you go. Just make sure you warn anybody you bring back here about the indoctrination purge effect, or they're liable to panic when they get too close and start convulsing and leaking black crap out of everywhere. For the same reason, I'd probably advise against turning on the protection circle emitters on your armor. Let the poor bastards get the explanation before they have to deal with it."

The two Asari are looking a bit ill as they suit up and get ready to follow the slayers out, remembering their own experience with the purging effect is never pleasant. Willow comes on the line a moment later.

"Do you think I should be on my desk here, or do you want me in the shuttle, piloting in case we need flight?"

Alex responds quickly as the truck begins lumbering its way down the street.

"You're fine where you are. I have Purple in the pilot's seat. Since we installed actual controls instead of just voice commands, they can pilot as easily as we can. It isn't like the thing moves fast enough that you need to make snap judgments. I'd go up there myself but I want to be at the wheel in case things go horribly wrong. We might need the speed. Besides, with all the broken buildings I might have an opportunity to try out the telekinesis set up, been wanting an excuse to play with that."

Willow manages a grin in spite of herself. In the end, Alexis is still Xander and the idea that she would give up a chance to play with a new toy under actual crisis conditions is a lot too much to ask.

"You're sure it's going to work? Slaving four of those systems together seems dangerous."

The answer comes back, somewhat drowned out by the sounds of three McBurgerizers going and the occasional burst from one of the Asari's rifles.

"It should. I mean, I can't think of any reason it wouldn't. I'm not a huge fan of the way it works either, to be honest. But with the weight restrictions on the spell, it was the only way to get a decent amount of power out of it. A thousand-foot range and fifteen hundred pounds are enough to use as a rescue tool and hazmat manipulator though, and that is really all I need it for."

Willow nods to herself. "I'm sending out a global transmission to anybody with an Omni-tool that there are people in the process of dealing with the husks, and that the Reaper is dead. Hopefully I can convince them to stay hidden away until I can send out an all-clear."

Kurin breaks in on that. "Good call. If you like I'll come in and do the recording for you. It might go over better coming from another Asari."

Alex nods to herself. "Sounds good, stopping the truck so you can get back on safely."

In the end, it takes more than a day to completely clean out the husk infestation and the remaining population of under eight thousand, less than ten percent of what the colony was just two days ago, has been purged, healed, and all their viable supplies found restocked into buildings that are still structurally sound. Finally, twenty-nine hours after arrival they are able to put the truck back on the freighter and meet up in the small cafeteria on board the Asari ship. Now that they are able to do so they spend some time comparing notes. Hermione is the first to speak up after they are all sitting and relaxing over their first meal since they used the Slip Drive.

"I ran some scans on the Reaper before we'd managed to destroy it. Admittedly I only have a sample size of one and I can't be sure since none of the spells I could use in that time frame were truly detailed enough but... I don't think these Reapers are alive in the traditional sense."

Superman frowns, not liking that they might have just torn apart a living creature. Necessary, probably. But distasteful even so.

"What do you mean in the traditional sense?"

Hermione ponders for a few seconds how to respond, and finally sighs and answers the Man of Steel.

"It felt processed. Similar to how cheese is a thing, and the nacho cheese goop at a truck stop is also called cheese and may even have a little dairy in it. But despite us calling them the same thing, they really are not. The one is pure, and alive with cultures. The other is a horribly processed cheese-like substance in which nothing truly survives. The Reaper scanned like the nacho cheese. There was life, and it was mutilated and perverted to create some kind of technologically undead abomination. Much like the husks, actually. Only billions of times more complex and built to last, rather than as a fire and forget weapon such as the husks seem to be."

The Green Lantern shakes his head as he blows on a spoonful of hot soup.

"I still don't understand what these Reapers get out of all this. Barbarism on this kind of scale is unheard of. It just doesn't make any sense."

Alex shrugs. "I've actually been putting some thought into that, and I can only come up with two real options that seem likely to me. First is that this is a task force from, say another galaxy or something and they are really only here to see to it that the people they represent stay the top dogs. Keep culling anybody that is getting close to being able to challenge you and you're never really in danger of your empire falling, that kind of deal."

Alexis takes a drink of water and Calia cocks her head to one side and curiously queries.

"What is your other theory?"

Alexis looks back up as she sets her glass down.

"That they are an error of some kind. Some kind of automated system that got out of control and either outlived its original creator or wiped them out. An extermination system, or an automated armada maybe. It's self-perpetuating, so it could have been much smaller at one point. Two or three of these things go rogue and manage to subdue a few civilizations. Make some more Reapers. Repeat the process a few thousand times and you could easily get what we have here. An unstoppable horde on an apparent timer."

She shakes her head in disbelief at what she is even considering. "I'll admit that I am leaning toward the second theory but if I'm being honest with myself I'm not sure how much of that is because I really believe it and how much is just me really not wanting to think about a race so evil that they would do something like this on purpose."

She gets some thoughtful looks and a few nods from around the table. Then Robin looks up from his meal and his expression is somewhat annoyed.

"Starfire and I didn't have a lot of luck against the armor on that thing. We could take one down after a while by going after the joints and other weak points I'm sure, and it was way too slow to actually hurt us. But we'd be at it for a lot longer than I'd like to make it happen. We'll probably need to join Beast Boy and them on husk and civilian rescue detail for the most part, only step in against the Reapers when there are enough of them around that we aren't getting in the way."

Alex laughs. "Welcome to the club. I'm not sure what I could possibly do against one of those damn things either."

The conversation grinds to a halt as the pilot walks into the room and sits down to get a bite to eat herself.

"As soon as I get done eating we can set a new course. Do we want to try to help another colony, or should I plot a course for Thessia?"

Alex brightens and opens her mouth, but it is Kurin that speaks out.

"Any word on my base? Are they still holding out?"

The pilot looks down at her bowl for a second, then back at Kurin.

"They were three days ago, but then I lost all contact with Thessia. I am assuming that the last of the satellite network finally got destroyed, but I can't answer any questions about the base. It may still be operational. We can hope."

Willow peers at their host with slight irritation.

"Why won't you tell us your name?"

The woman laughs. "Because I am under orders to reveal nothing that is not need-to-know until such time as the Reaper threat is over. It was intended to allow me to slip away easier when things went to hell, but I am now bound by it until relieved or the one who gave the order is dead or overruled. Sorry. Feel free to call me Pilot for now."

Alex offers a smirk. "Okay, Pilot. How long will it take to get to Thessia?"

The blue ship captain ceases her sprinkling of seasoning on her soup for a moment and considers.

"Three days making best possible speed. Five if I try to get there without advertising to the Reapers where we are going and announcing to them we are there when we arrive."

Xander nods. "Three it is. It isn't like we are going to be hiding when we get there."

Harry smirks at his soul brother. "True story, that."

>>>>

Author's Note.

Well, the first fight against one of the smaller Reapers is done. We'll see how they handle the homeworld soon.

Reviews and Recommendations Appreciated and as always... Thanks for reading!

 

[pendevin]

My biggest beef with this story is that after a decade, Alex hasn't improved her truck even more. Like when she first built the shuttle for it, she mentioned that she could probably improve the flight speed with some work, but it's still the same slow speed. Also to improvement seems to have been done the the engine/battery doohickey. That probably doesn't even need too much magic build time invested, only applied automotive knowledge, which Alex presumably picked up in auto shop class back in high school. You don't even need an electric battery to store your energy. When I read about your animated wheel automatons, I immediately thought of flywheels. I bet Alex would know how to mess with those.

I also wonder why Alex didn't try to reverse engineer Harry Potter enchanting. Is it a base incompatibility of magic styles? I would think that, since she mentioned it the main series that she could have learned something from the lightning gauntlet if it hadn't been terrible. Maybe it's because there hasn't been enough time to properly examine them yet, but I'd hope for a mental "added to the to-do list" showing up in the story.

 

[Datatroll]

My biggest beef with this story is that after a decade, Alex hasn't improved her truck even more.

Click to shrink...

Well, Factor into that timescale yearly apocalypses, outfitting by this point to the tune of like: twenty Slayers heavily, at least a dozen higher quality government people, at least four other vehicles that the scoobies use that are in my notes, sorting out to a highly defensible state a few more residences, gearing up probably another dozen or more hunters, teaching another artificer, and freeing from slavery a hell dimension.

Now, remember that while the truck can be used in combat? That isn't actually what it was built for. It's intended to be used for their vacations. In the end, once they got it back home and out of hell? Upgrading the truck became an extremely low priority compared to, you know. Everything else they have been leaning on her to do for the last ten years.

I make it a point to mention in one chapter coming up that in ten years, she had never even had an opportunity to finish her bachelor's degree. Give and take like that extends to much of her life.

Though... For what it's worth? Within the game rules, if you remove teleportation there really aren't too many ways to get something flying a whole lot faster with spells. I mean, they exist. But they aren't exactly growing on trees, tend to be higher level, and would require a hell of a lot more effort to implement. And the thing will already do highway speeds on its wheels.

As for reverse engineering HP stuff? She's only been exposed to it for a few months by the point the story currently ends, and has been just a tiny bit busy.

/shrug. I mean, I know it's really common in Fanfiction (particularly in any fic that includes anything from any game ever) to assume that the characters can make a single step from "Saw that!" to "Own it, Mastered it, Bought the T-shirt."

But the reality is a touch different. To put it in perspective? It took hundreds of Russian scientists and at minimum hundreds of millions of dollars (billions I am sure in today's money) four years after the end of WWII to come up with their own nuke, and they'd technically been working on it for like a decade.

For one person to completely learn a new magic system that bears no resemblance whatsoever to anything they know, even to the point of the language (runes) that it uses is completely foreign, and then expect that they will manage seven years of education in a few months in the middle of a war zone and with no teacher? Even if she figured the magic types were compatible, she hasn't had the time to worry about even a wish list.


Just, you know. Saying.
Thanks for the review!

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 15
In Transit Tribulations.

>>>>

After they've all had a chance to rest, their host offers a quick tour of the ship while they are in transit due to the virtual intelligence pilot (V.I.) being more than capable of the task of letting her know should anything go wrong. In short order it turns into a bit of an education on the local scene, and why some things are the way they are.

>>>>

"As you can see, there isn't really much to this thing. It's highly optimized to be able to run on a skeleton crew of one, but beyond that, it is pretty basic. At full capacity it can accommodate a crew of six and another ten passengers, assuming they are willing to double bunk. Much more than that and you would be straining the effectiveness of the air scrubbers." She stops and turns to Alexis. "A problem that I am noting hasn't really been an issue with your truck on board. I can only assume that you have something on there running concurrently that is helping things along."

Alex grins and nods. "It's actually just an air creation system. I would guess that your ship will have to expel some gasses out into space every once in a while when I'm on board. Same with the water hookups. I make my own, so it'll need to get vented out every once in a while or your plumbing system will get overfull."

The pilot stares at her with a blank expression for a few seconds.

"You can generate power, food, water, and air using this mystic stuff? How in the name of the Goddess herself did you not get involved in ship design from the get-go? With everything you can produce at will, you could build ships we could use to colonize the huge swaths of space that are off the Mass Relay system."

For the tour, only Alexis, Calia, and Hermione are along. Most of the rest are down in the cargo area by the truck debating how they want to handle the work they need to do on Thessia in two days' time. While she would no doubt have enjoyed the tour, Willow has been stuck doing research on the 'extranet' so that the heroes have some idea what they are getting into, And Kurin has stayed so they can pick her brain concerning what to expect from the local military. Hermione perks up at the new bit of information and turns to face the pilot directly.

"Mass Relay system? What is that, if I may ask?"

Pilot answers as she leads them to another area of the ship.

"Something we believed until recently was leftover from the Protheans. The people that were responsible for most of the ruins that we have found. Now we're not so sure, they could very well predate the Prothean people just like they did our own. But what they are is a system that will allow an Eezo utilizing mass driver equipped ship to get transported from one to another in a matter of seconds. The galaxy is seeded with a lot of them, but the usable space in the galaxy is still functionally limited because being too far from where one is placed effectively destroys your chances for interstellar commerce."

Hermione finds herself frowning. "So while there has been travel all over the galaxy, the amount of it that has actually been explored to any great detail is still quite small? What percentage, would you think?"

Calia answers while the pilot opens the door to the engine room.

"The last estimate that came from the Asari department of exploration and colonization was that intelligent, space-faring people had only run comprehensive scans on less than twelve percent of the galaxy, and had made planetfall on less than a percent of the probable celestial bodies that are of the proper composition and mass to enable a typical biped to survive in their gravity well. The number of garden worlds, where people can function without suits and an independent air supply, that have had any kind of planetfall is much higher, as obviously they are much more sought after. But even still, it is an estimated less than five percent of what we suspect is available in the galaxy."

Hermione nods in thought. "I guess that would make sense. Given the cycle we are trying to break, no civilization here would have likely had more than maybe twenty-five thousand or so years to really do much in the way of wide-scale exploring and it is a rather large galaxy, after all."

The pilot nods in agreement. "It doesn't help that because the Mass Relays control where commerce is viable, there isn't a lot of profit to be had in dumping huge effort into colonizing very far from them. I've heard of a few attempts over the years, mostly by governments. But the mega-corporations that might have the money to do something like that can't be bothered until there is an angle they can exploit somehow. Anyway, this is my engine room. It may not look it, but this ship has an Eezo mass driver about double the power one would expect on a ship this size. It was made forty years ago for running Batarian blockades in and around terminus space to get supplies to a few colonies we were trying to maintain on the edges of it."

She looks around in pride. "My main armament is a pair of V.I. controlled pop-up chain mass accelerators on the dorsal and ventral plating, so ship-to-ship combat is a pretty bad idea if it can be avoided. But there's nothing in the universe faster." She frowns. "It would be nice to have any kind of stealth system, but unfortunately it is difficult to carry much in the way of cargo on a ship streamlined for any kind of stealth. Some compromises had to be built into the construction of it."

>>>>

After finishing the tour, the lot of them aside from the pilot go back to the debate in cargo while the pilot heads back to the bridge, claiming that just because there is a V.I. navigating the ship doesn't make it a good idea to leave the station unmanned for long periods of time.

As they are walking into the cavernous room they can hear that it has broken up into multiple small groups of people talking about one or more aspects of what they can expect. As they walk in, Xander happens to be looking their way and steps in their direction.

"Hey, me! Check it out, Harry had an idea we wanted to run by you."

She sighs. "Please, just call me Alexis. I get it, I do. It's fun to have a twin-type person. But you're only going to cause confusion. It'll be bad enough when we have both of you boys on the same planet."

Xander waves off her concern and excitedly leads her over to Harry, who she notes looks like he is wishing that he wasn't being put on the spot. Sighing and shaking his head ruefully at his friend's excitability, he opens with an apology.

"Sorry for my brother here. I just mentioned something in passing and he got really interested in it. Personally, I don't even know if the concepts are compatible, given the warnings you gave out concerning how your portable holes work. Do you know if they are safe to use in an area that has been made bigger with space expansion charms?"

Alexis blinks. "Space expansion? Do you people do space expansion that isn't based on a dimensional pocket? Because that's where the problem is. A hole from one dimension to another is fine. Reaching from one to another is fine. It's trying to put one dimension directly into another that causes things to go kerflooey and once you are dealing with multiple instances inside one another it's almost impossible not to have that failure occur."

Hermione has a considering look on her face.

"You know, Harry, that may actually work given what she just explained." She muses out loud, her mind quickly running through the possibilities. "Space expansion charms don't really have anything to do with other dimensions. We use a different principle to achieve similar ends. Rather than a portal to another realm, the magic we use stretches out the available space, much as if you were to take a sheet of rubber and draw a house on it, then stretch that rubber out, the house would appear to get larger. This is just the three-dimensional version of that concept."

Then she turns to Alexis. "That being said, such areas are not completely stable and require magical power to function. On Earth, within a magical community in particular, they can easily be made semi-permanent and fairly safe. Traveling as you do to other dimensions and with your magic being so much different than ours, I would think it prudent to do some testing to see to it that you would be able to power such a thing before we tried to include it on your truck."

Harry shakes his head. "That really wasn't even what I was getting at, Hermione. I don't know that I would want them trying to deal with a permanent version for space on the truck considering what she already has that she knows works for them. But as something she could charge up and use on occasion, I was thinking about Moody's old trunk. You remember, the one that included a compartment with a twenty-foot-deep pit in it and could open to what, seven different locks, each of which could be the same if had wanted when he commissioned the thing?"

He nods at Alexis respectfully. "If we made those pits at least six feet across and put the entrance on the corner with platforms every three feet, her Wrights could enter the first one, roll out the hole, work for eight hours, Use a time-turner, slip down to the second one, repeat, so on and so forth. Then we just need the way out to have a sensor so they can't double up on space. Maybe have an opening from the bottom of one to the bottom of the next compartment and they could just work their way back up the other side. That would get her maybe six workstations per compartment and we know you can get at least six or seven compartments on those trunks. But even if we assume six, if we can sort out how to make the system circular in the sense that after a complete run-through they can start over in the first compartment again without leaving the thing?"

He smiles and motions vaguely towards her truck. "That is still thirty-six effective workdays for the single trunk. For the space in her truck or in one of her portable holes to equal the size of three school trunks, she could have a workplace that was effectively the same as what she had at my place. Her little minions never used the tools or materials that we left in there anyway. They just stocked portable holes with what they needed. Plus, if we can figure out a reliable way for them to transfer from the end of one trunk cycle and start another one without exiting, by a portal between the two or reusable Portkey stations or something? String a bunch of them together like that?"

Alex thinks about it for a minute, then shakes her head. "It might be better to have only three compartments but make them twice as wide, could that be a thing? It would let them have a place to set up a second hole for each level that they could use for the supplies they are going to need. That was the only problem they had with the setup we had at your place, the fact that they had to roll up their workspace every time they needed to get more raw materials."

Hermione nods slowly, tapping her lips with her wand. "Considering that we will be custom building this device, I would think we can probably get away with four such compartments. They travel down six levels, then back up six where they can either get out or continue and do it again."

Xander claps his hands twice. "Oh goody, the big brains all agree." He turns to Hermione. "Do you know all the runes to make something like this work?"

She gives him a scathing look. "Of course, I know the runes, I knew all the runic languages we used until Alexis showed up!" She sits on a tarp-covered crate and continues her pondering. "Though I'll admit I am not certain at all about a rune scheme that would allow Alex or something she fashions to act as a power source for it long term. It wouldn't be done properly until she can take it home with her and still use it when we are not around after all."

Alex shrugs. "Not going to lie, that would be awesome. But I'd need a time turner to actually make any kind of real use of it, and Harry was saying that they are hard to get, or make, or something."

Without a word, Xander reaches into his pouch, pulls out his own, and tosses it over. After the laughter from watching Alexis fumble about trying to catch it has died down, he gets a serious look on his face.

Well, serious for Xander, anyway.

"Take mine, keep it. I'll get another one eventually anyway and the amount of good you can get done with one of these things outstrips anybody else I can even imagine."

Alex carefully puts it on and her shocked face is blushing as she stammers. "Th-thanks. I'll put it to good use!"

Xander smiles the lopsided grin that he is famous for. "I know you will." Glancing Hermione's way he continues. "Any ideas yet?"

She glares at him. "If you think this is so easy to calculate in your head, why don't you do it yourself?" She turns back to Alexis. "Pardon my idiot friend, he just gets very excited. I think I will need to do some tests on a device of yours that stores magical energy to see if the energies are compatible. I'd say we could test using the battery on the slip drive, but I would be concerned that taking it apart would be all the excuse Murphy would need if you catch my drift. Do you have another item that stores charge by the day?"

Alex laughs. "I have so many it is beyond ridiculous. Maybe the easiest to let you work on would be a healing belt. I have at least a dozen of those squirreled away. Only three of them are here with us, but they're cheap in comparison to most things. If you end up testing one or two to destruction it wouldn't be the end of the world."

>>>>

After that, Alex and Hermione end up back on the truck while she runs tests for nearly an hour. Finally, she starts sketching out ideas on a ledger that she pulls out of the beaded bag that she wears. After another forty minutes and numerous more magical tests, she smiles.

"Yes, I think this could work. Your magic is much less well-defined than ours is. Probably because you haven't had to spend nearly as much time studying direct spell casting, you simply make an item that refines your intent down to exactly what it needs to be. In order to make this work, we'll need to make a conversion device. It would operate much like a prism, separating the magic out into distinct aspects that we could then refocus into what we want." She frowns. "The likelihood is that any design we come up with is bound to be unbelievably inefficient because of this. I expect that the system will only actually be able to use less than a third of the magic your item here can generate. We may well need a power source and batteries the size of the one for your slip drive to make a single such trunk work for only a few days of any given week, without suitable testing I can't say for certain. But that system in your hands could allow rather impressive things to happen, all things considered."

Alex nods, considering how she can make it better. "We'll have to do some fiddling with it and find out exactly what it takes to have more generation than it uses. I mean, this thing isn't hopping dimensions, I may not need a battery at all if I can make the generator capable."

The two continue talking shop for a few more hours, and finally, Hermione sighs.

"Sadly, for the kind of thing we are talking about building, I will first need to make a trip back to our world for the materials. While there may well be other ways to achieve the effect we want, the methods I know about that we can use to make it a permanent effect require the use of magical animal hides that we don't have here."

Willow, who had joined them an hour ago with Calia, speaks up.

"Maybe we can take you with us when we get Dawn and take her there? Then you can get what you need. Even make it quicker if we call ahead to Tonk's Mom to make the purchases we'll need."

Hermione nods, but in her thinking she also finds herself breaking into a smile.

"You know, these trunks are not really that expensive, and there are professionals who make them. We could just as easily request that Harry ask Dobby to put in an order for the ones we want at the dimensions that we need and then modify them when they get here for use as your mobile shops. We could likely purchase six such things for less than ten thousand galleons, even as a custom order." At their blank look, she answers the unspoken question on the face of all of them but Willow. "Gold pieces. Wizarding currency. I won't lie, that is a lot of money, but to Harry and Xander, it's pennies. I'll go let them know what we've decided and once we have the basic trunks here, making the modifications to them should be pretty easy. But you might want to get your workers started building a magical generator and battery system we can use to test with. We'll need more hard data than my educated guesswork before we get serious about this."

>>>>

An hour later sees them all in the mess hall again for lunch. Wolfing down her sandwich, as Alex had forgotten to eat anything for breakfast in her eagerness to go on the ship tour, she is nonetheless the first to call out to the group as a whole.

"So did you all decide on a plan?"

Padfoot groans in apparent agony. "Oh god, don't let them get started again, I can't take it anymore!"

Diana pokes him in the side. "Oh, hush. This is necessary."

Superman clears his throat, smirking a little at Padfoot's pain.

"The reality is that until we are on-site we can only really do so much planning. Too many things will depend on what we find when we arrive in two days. The best case I think we can hope for is that the base that you stayed in is still functional, the people inside still able to be saved from this indoctrination thing, and somebody in power that knows what all you are about is still there and willing to listen."

He sighs. "The worst-case I can imagine is that the military and all major population centers are completely crushed, and the mission will become partly an aggressive defense and the rest of our time will be a worldwide relief effort until they can get back on their feet. If it is closer to the first scenario, we can probably clear out the Reapers and the bulk of the husks in a few weeks of serious effort between the local military and ourselves based on what we dealt with on Gideron. If it is the second, this could take months. Easily months, maybe a year or more to get them self-sufficient enough and strong enough to defend themselves when we move on. In fact, the crux of most of our arguments seems to be trying to decide if we should plan on all staying on one planet to clear it quickly, or spread out our efforts to the other homeworlds and try to take the pressure off the local defenders on a larger scale. Give them all more capability to help themselves."

The two Asari in the room are both pretty quiet at this point. Alex motions to Kurin to speak up about what is obviously on her mind. After a few seconds of indecision, she does so.

"I realize that I probably sound biased, but I honestly think it would be better to clear the galaxy a planet at a time. Maybe not to a hundred percent, but at least all the Reapers and any significantly large groups of Husks. The reason I say that is the rebuilding you're talking about can't really happen while we are in a state of war. Until we have made it safe enough to function, all they can do is fight. You know?"

The Green Lantern drums his fingers on the table twice with an expression like somebody just got done grating lemons against his gums.

"For what it's worth, I don't disagree with your assessment, biased though it might have been I would say the ending conclusion makes sense. But it goes against everything the Corps stands for to help one planet exclusively when there is so much going on elsewhere that needs to be stopped."

He sighs. "And I won't be able to offer the additional assistance I was hoping to. The people who make the rules for the Green Lantern Corp are not huge fans of their lawmen getting into locations where they can't get a call for help out. So they asked me to send a signal to them when I arrived to test things and it didn't get through. They won't stop my being here. But they won't risk any additional personnel on a venture like this unless we can establish better two-way communications and a more reliable method of transferring between realities than counting on one woman and her RV." He turns to Alex directly. "No offense, I am very impressed with what you have accomplished. But unfortunately, I don't make the rules."

Alex shrugs. "None taken. I would imagine that not being able to call in all their people whenever they needed would make any tiny blue people a bit upset."

Jon immediately looks at her in astonishment. "How did you know that?"

Rolling her eyes, she prepares herself mentally for yet again explaining the nature of realities and entertainments.

It's a thankless task that is getting quite annoying, but nobody else will touch it apparently. They seem to have all declared her the expert.

Though it must be said, watching Diana, Kara and Raven smack their significant others while she is speaking because they are laughing so loud at the new people's expressions that nobody can hear her is pretty gratifying.

>>>>

Author's Note:
We make Thessia next chapter. We'll see what happens then.

As for the Green Lanterns, I genuinely think this is about how it would go. While they are to my recollection generally good people, the Guardians of Oa are pretty damn conservative.

(Besides, if the good guys could whistle up another hundred GL's this wouldn't be nearly as much fun to write or read, I'm thinking.)

Reviews are appreciated!

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 16
Shuffling The Deck.

>>>>

The ship's intercom comes to life a few days later while the heroes are lounging around the cargo deck. "We're coming up on Thessia now if anybody wants to come up to the bridge and take a look."

The short-lived stampede makes it to the bridge only to see a star-filled sky as they move through space. Robin looks at the pilot quizzically.

"I thought you said..."

She breaks in. "That we were coming up on Thessia. We are. Just hit the edge of extreme sensor range. Technically we are still six hours out, but I can start bringing up ground-based radio chatter and long-range stills now, and we are already in our deceleration to prep for the final approach. If you aren't interested in what's going on until you can make out the planet with the naked eye, I'll call you back in five and a half hours."

In response, the heroes find themselves again breaking into small groups to softly discuss what they are seeing. One thing seems to be getting brought up fairly regularly, this latest time by Starfire.

"I can't believe there is so many of them. If one nearly brought the galaxy to its knees a few years ago, why would they need so many now?"

Superman and Diana are off to the side talking strategy, and Robin is holding a tearful Starfire while he crunches numbers.

"Assuming that all the major population centers have roughly the same number of Reapers in their vicinity by pre-invasion population basis, there are more than four hundred of them on Thessia right now. The number of husks is obscene and according to this, growing. Rapidly."

The Pilot starts speaking, and it takes them a moment to realize that she is speaking to somebody on the ship's communications system.

"Danateda, this is Freebird Alpha One. I need to be put through to Matriarch Mileeni as soon as possible."
....
"You'll either put me through or pass it up the chain to somebody that will. You don't have the authority to deny me, I don't care what your CO said."
...
"I'll hold for a few minutes. If I am left hanging here longer than that, I'll take your attitude up with the base commander and you'll see a court-martial that will have you busted back into a basic infantry so you can make yourself useful as a bullet sponge. Am I absolutely clear?"

There is silence in the cockpit for a few seconds as many of the various heroes try to make their peace with what they've overheard.

Oddly, the Green Lantern and Wonder Woman both seem pretty fine with it and continue what they were doing. It doesn't take more than a minute before Pilot is talking again.

"Mileeni. What is your current situation?" This time she has put the conversation on screen and speakers, so everybody can listen in.

"Not good, I assure you. The base is currently under siege by a simply enormous number of husks. There were a few shots taken at the mountain by Reapers directly, but when they didn't make any particular progress trying to burn a hole through nearly a mile worth of dirt and granite, they sent their minions in their numbers to harass us instead. Enough of my situation, I see you are making a return trip. Why, if I may ask?"

In response, the Pilot backs away from the camera so the Matriarch can see the crowd in her cockpit.

"Your humans found some help at their next stop." At the look on the face of the base commander, Pilot continues. How she manages to sound almost bored considering what she is saying Alex has no idea. Must be an Asari thing. "I'd have called varren shit on it myself except I've already seen them take care of a Reaper. Pulled the thing apart like it was made of that bread you get at the festival come fall. I believe the current plan is to release these individuals on the way in, land in the base, and then this Alex character has a way to negate the indoctrination that she'll want to run out to the base as quickly as possible. Once these heroes of hers have gotten us some breathing room, we can have a meeting to decide what we are going to do moving forward. If that meets your satisfaction."

The Matriarch is silent for a few moments. Then she speaks out.

"We will do this thing, but make sure you explain to these heroes that I can only open the doors briefly, if they have any trouble dealing with what they find out there I won't be able to open them again to let them in, possibly for as long as a few days, if at all."

The Pilot nods. "As you say, so shall it be. Assuming there are no problems, we are five hours out. Look to the sky then."

The call ends and the heroes double down on what they are doing, trying to learn as much as can be quickly crammed into their brains concerning the planet they will be fighting for as they possibly can.

Finally, the heroes all meet in an airlock to be dumped out into the air on a low and slow pass over the base, before the spacecraft itself disappears into the mountain. They don't get a chance to see how things are going before their craft is undercover, but the meeting that is waiting for them in the hangar that the spacecraft is directed to seems to be a bit derailed.

Alex isn't sure what Mileeni was intending to do with this meeting. Probably yell at them all for coming back. But instead, all thirty of the Asari that are part of this particular meet and greet are staring at the direct feed on their Omni-tools and listening to the occasional booming crash somewhere far above them in the mountain. The Matriarch finally shakes her head as if to clear it, and steps forward. "How? How are they doing these things? There is no biotics in the universe that can accomplish this..."

The Pilot walks over and gives her a hug. "I know. And yet it happens. Mileeni, we need to get you on my ship for a while. There is something we need to do."

At the woman's tired nod and hand gesture, the pilot shakes her head. "Just you. Just you for now. And tell them that you will be at least a good hour before they see you again."

At the woman's curious look, the pilot nods again, as if encouraging her.

Moments later, she is in the cargo area. "Now what is all this about? We are breaking half a dozen protocols that are intended to stop the spread of indoctrination right now."

Slowly walking over to the truck, Alex gives Buffy and Kendra both the look before she has Blue flip the switch.

Instantly, the protections from evil and chaos pulse out, followed a few seconds later by good and law. The Matriarch falls to her knees in abject misery, hacking up a disturbing quantity of the black, pus-like substance that would seem to be the physical representation of the Reaper indoctrination.

Kicking on the healing auras as well to speed the woman's recovery, Alex is standing before her running tests intended to check her health while Buffy and Kendra mostly make it a point to keep her from falling into her own sick. At the end of the ten minutes it takes her to finally stop purging, she collapses in Kendra's arms and is taken to one of the bedrooms on the ship to sleep it off for as long as they can give her before she'll be needed by the troops again.



Outside, they have broken up into two distinct groups. The Lupin's as well as BeastBoy, Luna, Robin, Starfire, and the Green Lantern are mostly concerning themselves with lifting the siege around the base. The husk population in the area is dropping considerably, though there are still so many around that for all practical purposes they seem to be coming right out of the walls.

While this is going on all the various Kryptonian types as well as Diana and Sirius have taken to destroying and getting rid of Reapers as quickly as possible, which would appear to be an average of another one gone to pieces about every twenty minutes or so. It would be faster, but they are still trying very hard to not leave bits of Reaper laying everywhere. Though legitimately, now that the Reapers are starting to realize there is a problem, they are responding in kind.

>>>>

Superman ducks the bottom edge of a ruby red beam that had the potential to hurt even him had it struck and looks up. Zooming his eyesight in he can just make out the flight of six-mile-long behemoths that are taking up position in orbit above their efforts. Without even bothering to call out for help, the hero makes his way to their vantage point at speeds that might have been impressive, had anybody here actually been able to witness him doing it. Instead, it seems as though he merely disappears from view and reappears slamming into one of them.

They are making good progress, and the enemy is making it easier by consolidating their efforts where the most resistance is. But unfortunately, good progress under these circumstances just means that the innocent victims are dying only a little bit slower than they were, and like the rest of them, he redoubles his efforts at the sound of every child that screams in terror.

And he hears them all, his heart weeping even as he takes out another one and starts it on its trajectory to the gravity well of the local star. It genuinely isn't helping that he is using an absolutely ridiculous amount of his energy reserves right now, and while this sun has some yellow light, it isn't the same as an Earth. He'll need time under the lamps fighting here.

But that's for later. He has five more of these damn things up here that are shooting at him, the rest of the league volunteers, and thanks to his efforts in keeping the fighting among the enemy, each other.

Time to get back to it, stop spending so much time thinking. It's time to be doing.

>>>>

Forty minutes after they purge the woman, the Pilot is snapping something under her nose that smells like rotten ammonia. The Matriarch's eyes snap open in irritation, and then as she begins to think, her eyes completely unclouded for the first time in quite a while, she curses.

"Goddess be damned bastard Reapers!" Sitting up quickly, she turns to Alexis. "Rumor has it you have a permanent solution?"

Nodding, Alexis holds out a scrap of paper. "It works like a tattoo. Puts the defense on your body permanently"

She accepts the paper and gives the pilot a look with a raised eyebrow.

Answering the look, the pilot undoes a few snap-type things down her neck and once low enough pulls the collar on the right down and away from center.

She carries the mark against the purely smooth and otherwise perfectly unblemished blue skin of her right breast. Along the swell, and just a bit north of where the humans would expect to be seeing a nipple, though she doesn't pull her clothing down enough to reveal that one way or the other.

Before Alex has an opportunity to tell her that it can go anywhere, the Matriarch has stuck it to herself in the same spot, and after the slight flash of color turns back to Alexis.

"I need more of these things, so I can be sure of my people."

Willow shakes her head. "I'm sorry, but we can't make that many. Too many other things we need to do."

At the look of irritation on the face of the base commander, Alex breaks in to try to head things off at the pass.

"She's right, but we have an area of effect version that we are installing into the back-mounted weapon racks your people use. Both that and a cooling system so you can use the old guns, and an area of effect fast healing aura. I have four extra sets now I can give out to whoever you have that you want to have the tools. It's all modular and I can modify your standard packs to accept them pretty easily. As for any more getting made, I need to make a supply run before I can do anything about that. Both for the supplies and to get the rest of the relief force."

The woman is just finishing up buttoning her shirt and looks up in astonishment.

"There's more?!"

Alex grins. "A guy I know has a bored army and we can have him here with it by tomorrow. What I need from you is a big area that is safe from orbital bombardment that they can set up a base camp in."

The woman nods, considering. "How much room do they need?"

Buffy smirks. "It's going to be at least forty thousand strong, and the soldiers in it average about four hundred and fifty pounds."

The woman pales. "I can't feed that many additional people. I can barely feed the base personnel I already have with the drips and drabs that are coming in by way of supplies."

Alex nods, expecting that. "I have their food and such sorted out. No worries there. I just need a place to put them."

After a few more seconds, the Matriarch sighs and shakes her head. "The best place would actually be here. The motor pool still has a lot of work happening in it on a regular basis, but spacecraft travel to and from the base has dropped to all but nothing. It's the single highest finished area in the mountain, and as such there are ways out of it through various tunnels that they could easily use. We'll need to cordon off maybe a third of it in case we have any further visitors, but otherwise will this work for you?"

Alex nods. "Yeah, this should work fine. I'll go ahead and install one of my new beacons here so I can make it back without being stuck in her ship again." The head jerk to the pilot is quick. "If I leave you with Calia, Kurin, Buffy, and Kendra plus an additional four of their specialized weapon racks augmented for your people, could you start getting the base de-gunkified while I am getting more people and stuff?"

She is quiet for a moment, wrestling with the unwanted reality of Alex leaving without taking the two Asari with her. But in the end, she sighs and nods.

"It will be as you say. Be not long, if you are able. I feel that we will need you in the council chambers soon."

Alexis and Willow share a look. Alex looks toward the truck and the two start making their way over there. "Probably. Gotta say, not looking forward to that."

Her look quizzical, the Matriarch leans inside the truck so her response can be heard. "Why would you say that?"

Flicking a couple of switches, Alex motions her back a bit, and just before closing the door hollers out over the whirring and clanking of the power from the clockworks ratcheting against the drive train. It's a fairly quiet system once it is working, but it is a bit cantankerous when you first start it up and all the tension is put on everything.

"They're gonna want to give my troops orders, and I can't do that. They're volunteers and they'll do what they want. I mean, I can try to point them in the direction your people think is best, but if what they think is best is saving a gun factory and the crew sees an orphanage going down on the way, your gun factory is probably getting wrecked. Just so we're clear. See you soon."

And within a few seconds, they're gone.

>>>>

>> Hell-Mutt Xander's Place. 3:30 PM
It'd been a weird few weeks, that's for sure. First the trip to the hell dimension on a rescue mission, then meeting and exchanging information with a feminine counterpart, and now he's waiting around with a veritable army of hungry mouths to feed waiting to hear any word on what is going on.

He is just about to stand and go inside when Alexis' truck appears on the beacon he was given and the notable in question opens the door and hops out.

"Dawn around? I have two stops I need to make with her so she knows where to go, and then we can start getting your forces on over."

He nods. "I'll send her around. I'll probably need to stay here to keep things under control, and we weren't sure when exactly you'd be here. So the people I am bringing along aren't here yet. Can your position hold out two days while we get everything together?"

Alex looks around the enormous, miles wide clearing on the property and it starts to occur to her just how many hell-mutts there are around here. She turns back to Mutt-Xander and flashes a huge grin.

"Oh yeah. I'll give Dawn the tour and then she can drop you on us whenever you're ready."

She starts laughing at the sheer numbers she is seeing.

"Should be a heck of a good time. Anyway, listen up. I'll be sorting out a few things and whatever on my first stop, so it'll be a few hours before you see her back. I promise I'll take good care of her."

Xander laughs out loud at that one. "It isn't me you have to convince. It's Mr. Gordo Jr."

Turning back around to face the house rather than the quickly becoming curious horde of happy hell-flesh.

Of course, she does so just in time to see Dawn exit the house, and she is followed directly by what can only be the current holder of Buffy's old stuffed pig's name. Mr. Gordo Jr. it would seem is a bit of a giant. Alex guesses that the creature is probably pushing the scales at a thousand or more pounds. Overall it looks not terribly unlike what you might get if you were to somehow blend together a wild boar and a grizzly bear. Flat snout, light-colored fur running from blonde to a deep reddish-brown in places. Massive, foot-long tusks and a maw that is designed to take anything that gets too close to it and grind it into a pulpy mass on its way to being poop before the luckless creature bitten even realizes that something has gone wrong.

At six feet to the high ridge of its back, there is nothing about the creature that anyone could consider small except its presence. How something that is this big manages to make itself seem an afterthought behind a little slip of a girl like Dawn, she has no idea. But damned if it isn't working.

"Hey, you ready? Me and Gordo need to get away for a while." She turns to smirk at Xander. "The boy here has some thinking to do."

Xander looks like he is about to say something that would no doubt be unrelentingly snarky, but turns toward the house where there is a phone ringing instead. Giving the two of them a thumbs up, and Dawn a dirty look, he jogs back into the house.

Alexis motions Dawn and her 'protector' to the back of the truck.

"What was all that about?"

Dawn slips her a grin as she shuts the door behind them.

"Xander managed to get married and then widowed before I could get old enough to corner him, but I've been working on him for a few years now and he's finally starting to weaken a bit. It was kind of inevitable, really. I have breasts, after all, and he is a boy."

Alexis holds out a hand. "I think you should probably stop there. I am kinda him, you know."

Excitedly, Dawn nods. "I know! That's why I brought it up. I figured you might have some insight as to what he'd say?"

Alex turns to face the direction that the house is and stares at the gray metal of the truck interior for a few seconds before she sighs.

"To be clear, you are just asking me whether or not a boy version of me could be drug kicking and screaming to bed in the company of a total hottie that he's been trying not to think like that about since she was fourteen or something. Is that correct? You're not wanting my estimate as to whether or not this will all end in tears?"

Dawn rolls her eyes. "He's you, we're girls, he's a boy. If I can get through his misplaced efforts to protect me from nothing, then there's no reason this can't be great. But I need to get him committed first. Do you think I can?"

Alexis sighs and takes a moment to dumb down the sarcasm she is using. Apparently, she was too complex for the emotional girl last time.

"No. I don't think you will have any trouble getting him to take you... This is just too damn creepy. Don't ask me anything like this again." She turns to go to the front of the truck and Dawn giggles after a few seconds of thought.

"Sorry. For what it's worth, I like a girl-shaped Xander too. But maybe I should slow my conquering to one Xander at a time."

All but fleeing at this point, Alex yells back. "Yeah, you do that!"

>>>>

Author's note:

I have no idea at all where Dawn as a lust motivated and conniving wench came from and why it seems to be a thing across dimensions.

But that being said, I think she might be here to stay for a while.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 17
Getting Ready For Round Two.

>>>>

In the end, it takes her, Willow, and Dawn most of the day to finish placing her orders on various materials and collect the custom-built trunks at Harry and Kara's estate. Commune. Thing? Whatever.

Admittedly some small amount of that time was spent playing with the puppies, whom they had been rather missing the last few days. Also playing with Teddy Lupin, who might well be growing up into becoming the most connected individual on the face of the planet. Then there were the supplies that she borrowed from the various 'crafting' areas of the property to refill a bunch of her own dwindling stock that she expects that she will need once these trunks are finished.

Eventually, however, they make the return trip to the Asari base on Thessia. Dawn gets out, looks around to get a good feel for the place, waves, and then disappears into what looks like a ragged green hole that she seems to have torn into reality. A few minutes after their return, Buffy and Kendra are back with Calia and Kurin. Alex is already busy drawing up the finalized plans to utilize the four trunks that they have purchased.

Used properly, by beings of the right size who don't need to breathe, eat or excrete, who don't get bored as long as they always have something constructive to do, used by them and with a time turner involved? One of these trunks can allow a single Wright to accomplish thirty-six days worth of work. Times four trunks. One hundred and forty-four days. Times eight Wrights. One thousand, one hundred and fifty-two days worth of magical and mundane construction in twenty-four hours of real-time. Just shy of three years and two months' worth of production in a day.

Buffy, however, doesn't seem particularly impressed by that for the most part and instead opens up with something different.

"Okay, next time I go on the magical tour to other dimensions while you stay here walking around wearing the clothes that make the whole base puke when you get within ten feet of them. The most disgusting thing I've ever had to deal with in my life, I swear."

Kendra rolls her eyes. "It wasn't that bad."

At Buffy's disbelieving glare, she amends her statement. "Okay, it actually was that bad. But it needed to be done and I was proud, if fairly disgusted at times, to be part of it."

Calia is mostly smiling, it seems that being surrounded by puking Asari agrees with her more than not being around Asari at all. Kurin, however, doesn't seem to have time for that.

"We need to get you back to the cafeteria. Your heroes dealt with enough that we were able to get the doors open to let them in, but they all need to get this meeting dealt with so they can go to bed. None of them are unscathed."

Alex nods but looks curiously at her toward the end of her spiel.

"The Reapers managed to hurt Superman? That's surprising."

Kurin sighs. "In his case, I think he is more emotionally drained than anything else. He came across a school for small children that was surrounded by those 'Dragon's Teeth' that the husks use to make more of their kind. The influx of tiny, Asari-based husks that they found in the area did a number on him. I get the impression that he hasn't spoken much since then."

The few seconds of silence after that are more than a little oppressive.

"Okay, we'll head to the meet and greet. I just need a few more minutes here to get this started. Right now the trunks are empty. I need them retrofitted with the rooms inside so the Wrights can use them properly."

Willow nods, pleased with what they had accomplished today. "How long will that take?"

Alex scratches out a measurement and replaces it with something she likes better.

"A few more minutes to get a blueprint sorted. No more than three hours I wouldn't think for the Wrights to get done with the builds once that's done. Then I'll need some help from Hermione to get the last of their magic into it for the ability to transfer between them without exiting, though I'm not bothering with magical detection arrays they use because simple locks on either side of every door will suffice as long as it's only ever one group going through, and I can make that law for them just by thinking it."

A few minutes later and they are cleaned up via a magic spell and heading to the mess hall.

"So how well did the protection arrays hold up?"

Buffy gets a grossed-out look on her face, and Kendra snorts.

"They worked very well, all things considered. My only concern is that you are going to need to build additional ones to place at all the entrances and exits to the base, I think. There wasn't one Asari in the whole base that wasn't pretty badly affected by this. Honestly, if it weren't for the impossibility of actually outfitting a planet that way, I'd ask for tattoos for everybody so they never have to experience that again. But failing that, these areas of effect versions will do the job I think. We'll probably need thirty of them at least to cover the base though, and that's not even counting the ones for the weapon racks on their soldiers. The Matriarch had an opportunity to see how that setup worked and is pretty interested in all of her troops having something similar."

As they are opening the door to the chow hall, Alex's response dies in her throat.

"Yeah, well, that would be a hell of a lot of time and money, how about we go for just team leads and stuff for... now?"

The entire room is full, standing room only, and once Alex is recognized, she and her party are bumped and nudged all the way to the front of the hall by an increasingly noisy and undeniably happy group of blue warrior space-babes.

While Alex is happily married, there are certain things that one can experience that are still worthwhile things to have had on her bucket list. And while she didn't know it was there until now, she has decided that experiencing the awe and praise of a huge number of gorgeous, blue, warrior women was definitely on that list, and she is penciling in a repeat for later in the week if she can possibly manage it.

She has been a lady for a long time and has memories that go even longer than reality. But in the end, somewhere deep down, is still a Xander that thinks that getting hugs, fist bumps, and tearful thank you's from hot chicks is without a doubt in her new top five ways to spend an afternoon.

When she reaches the front she can see that Mileeni and the heroes she brought are all at one long table and they are being fed well, though the conversation is minimal. Most of them look rather like they are suffering from a bit of shell shock.

Alex pulls up a chair and sits opposite Hero-Xander. He seems slightly less discombobulated than most. Probably has to do with being raised on a Hellmouth.

"So how went the first day?" She asks him while the rest of her party is sitting down and dishing up. The silence behind them is evidence enough if any were needed that the entire room is listening with all the attention they can muster.

Xander sighs and pushes his plate away.

"It was as bad as you claimed. Worse, even. None of us regret coming, and we're ready to fight again tomorrow. But I'm not sure how long all of us are going to be able to stay. Between needing to get back to our own beats and, well..."

He lowers his voice, though Alex isn't sure how much good that is actually going to do in this room that is full of supers and Omni-tools that are all pointed this way, listening. "Some of us didn't deal well with just how brutal an actual genocidal war is. They're heroes and they're powerful and they mean well. But the concept of doing this for months at a time is daunting to the best of us. At the power levels most of us operate at, fights don't take long enough to think too hard about them at the time. It's more act, react, and then rationalize. Give us a few days though, I won't assume anybody here is backing out until they say something."

The Matriarch speaks up at this point, having spent the time that Xander was speaking checking her Omni-tool.

"While I can't officially offer thanks on the part of the Asari people, you can be assured that your cohort and any involved in bringing them to assist my people have my deepest thanks and appreciation and that of the base I command. Once you are done eating, if you don't mind I'd like to take you to a smaller meeting room where we can discuss a bit what you are willing to do and how we can repay you."

A couple of the heroes wince slightly, obviously having hoped that they were close to done for the day. The Matriarch chooses not to notice this and presses on.

"As best as our intelligence network can determine, this morning there were just under five hundred Reapers tearing our world apart. That number has shrunken to four hundred and two in just a day. The husk siege and blockade on this facility that we believed was more than a million strong has been largely smashed. The remnants of it in the area are still highly dangerous, sometimes a few thousand strong in areas and still a few hundred thousand we suspect are active within a few miles. But the group's cohesion is gone, their task forgotten in their need to defend the territory they have already won."

There is much cheering in response to all of this, and the Matriarch holds up a hand in response to it, quieting them.

"It is not all good news, however. As of an hour ago, I received word that more than a hundred of the Reapers that have been destroying Palaven, the homeworld of the Turians, have been redirected elsewhere. A similar number from Solarian space. While I have no direct reports to verify it, it seems probable that the fleets around Krogan and Human space will have been similarly depleted. We can only assume they are coming here."

The room is starting to become genuinely silent when she isn't speaking. It's as though the horde of soldiers in the room don't want to breathe for fear that they will somehow make it worse.

"Because of this, and because of the tools that Alexis has kindly supplied us with that make it possible without simply setting ourselves up for betrayal, we will be opening our doors to any living beings you find on your patrols. Bring them back here with whatever they can carry, and we'll do our best to see to their needs."

She stops for a moment, then shakes her head. And mutters under her breath. "I can't believe I am having to say this..." Then she straightens back up and looks out over the crowded hall.

"Please take note that while we have the cure for the indoctrination, trained medical personnel, and supplies, as well as enough defense to hopefully allow them to live at least somewhat worry-free for their own safety, what we are running low on is food. Any sustenance you find on a patrol, no matter how small, is to be bagged and brought back here for possible reprocessing and distribution. Our deliveries to the surrounding areas during the first stages of this conflict are now becoming problematic as more than three-quarters of our supply was given away in relief efforts. Nobody..."

The woman, older by hundreds of years than nearly everybody else in the room, seems to choke on her emotions for a moment before she can ratchet down her will once again into the here and now.

"Nobody expected things to get as bad as they did as quickly as they did, and the replacement provisions we were supposed to be getting never arrived."

There is silence for a few minutes, and seeing that the heroes are done eating, she motions for them to follow her out of the room while the rank and file get their own dinner. Once they are in a much smaller meeting room, the Matriarch at the head of the table offers a tentative smile.

"In truth, most of the planet is doing far better since your arrival this morning. Sadly, the reason that things are doing so much better is that for now at least the eye of the Reapers it would seem is fixated here, upon my base. Their husks in their millions scattered about the planet are making their way here along with the vast majority of the Reapers on the planet or above it. Very soon, we are guessing within two days at the outside, we will be under a siege the likes of which will make the last one look like a polite suggestion, and we expect the blasting from above to start up again from their largest dreadnoughts and continue until they have found the bedrock beneath us."

She sighs and leans back a little in her chair.

"It is for these reasons and many others that I ask if you are willing to continue on for a time as you have today. Our problems are not yours, and I am well aware of the fact that should you wish to leave, you can do so. But I need to know. To make plans for either abandoning the base or merely making them pay for every square millimeter of it they take, I need to know. And while if I was in your shoes I'd probably not like to be reminded of it, I instead find myself in the opposite circumstances and so I am going to tell you now that with the additional forces they are bringing to bear on Thessia if you do leave this base everybody in it will be gone in a week, while Thessia as a whole will be lucky to make it to see the new year in four months time."

Xander smirks. "But hey, no pressure. Right?"

She manages just a slight tremor of her lips. The closest she can get to a smile at the moment.

"Indeed, that is correct." Her face gives up its attempts at levity. "In all seriousness, that is actually the case. If I had any way to apply pressure, please be aware that I am not so clean that I wouldn't use it to save my people and our homeworld. But as I have nothing on you, nor do I have any way to try to bring any such pressure to bear even if you did have secrets that I could exploit, I am reduced to begging and mental manipulations a child could see through."

Raven nods, a small smile gracing her lips. "And one did."

Xander looks pleased for a second and then turns to his wife with a laugh. "I say, Hey!"

There is some general chuckling, however weak, from the rest of the group. Then the Matriarch speaks again.

"I was rather believing that you would want to keep all the forces you are bringing together in one spot, Alexis. Is there any issue with us setting up some tents and such for privacy in the hanger? And perhaps more importantly, are the forty thousand additional soldiers you are bringing soon going to be needing anything aside from space?"

Alexis looks around at the crew from DC and realizes how tired most of them look. Particularly the Kryptonians.

"That would be fine. If your people could set aside some tents for any leisure time and maybe a chow hall and a place to shower. I suspect that they'll actually be sleeping on the truck, at least a bunch of them. But any that would like alternate accommodations I'll send to your quartermaster."

Alex bops her head to one side and then the other. "As for the forty thousand soldiers, the only thing we'll need for them is a designated area for pooping and such. There are a few human types coming along, but the vast majority of them will be quadrupeds. As I understand the local fauna, they would not be terribly dissimilar to varren, though the reality is that they are to a varren what your best warrior is to a child still young enough to suckle. In fact, I'll need to talk to your lead engineer again at some point. I need to figure out a way to optimize the Omni-tools so these troops can wear a full one that they can use, a second one on their other forelimb that just makes the weapon they can use when they need it, and potentially I'd like to get their armor package upgraded to include some shields."

Mileeni shows a bit of interest in spite of herself.

"Forty thousand things that are functionally a thousand times more dangerous than a varren? I'll talk with my engineer tonight and see what I can find out. At this point, I am somewhat at the mercy of our supplies, which are not ideal. But I'll see what we can do."

Diana finds herself identifying with these blue females, even knowing that for all practical purposes they were not as such, but rather simply mono-gendered. It is, after all, a very similar situation to the one that she was raised in herself in many ways.

"While I can't speak for everybody here, I'll certainly help as long as I can. I can think of no crisis on our Earth that will best your need at the moment. I do, however, feel that I should let you know that there are good odds that there will come a time when we will have to leave to deal with our own problems. So when you are making your plans, I would recommend that you make them with the intent to get as much done as quickly as you can, as we will not be fighting a war of attrition with these things. We haven't got the time when our own world could easily be under siege at a moment's notice."

Mileeni nods. "And if that happens, I'll only hope it goes well for you and swiftly because I can't imagine that you being gone will be good for my people. Particularly now that you have gotten the Reaper's attention, as it were."

Superman nods once and having apparently heard enough for now, stands.

"Like Wonder Woman, I'm happy to help as long as I can. But that starts again tomorrow. Right now we all need sleep. A chance to re-energize. Make some better plans for tomorrow now that we have an idea of what we are doing. My only recommendation for you is to keep your people in the base for tomorrow and let us work. After that, hopefully, we'll have gotten rid of enough of these Reapers that your soldiers can enter the fray without their valor being answered by a red beam from space."

The rest of them stand, at first somewhat uncertainly and in the case of Jon Stewart, even a little annoyed. But they leave with him.

The Matriarch gives Alexis a bit of a questioning look.

"Not the biggest talkers, are they?"

Alexis shrugs.

"On their own world, most of them hide their identities. That meeting down in the mess hall wouldn't have likely happened back home. And these are heroes, not soldiers. They don't count the Reapers they've slain as a victory. They count the children they were unable to save as a defeat. Honestly, I expect at least a good half of the ones I brought to have to leave soon either for mental health reasons or because they are needed at home."

At the Matriarch's suddenly worried look, Alex sighs and offers a smile.

"But that said, I don't think they are going to all leave by any stretch of the imagination. If I didn't think we could turn things around, I wouldn't have come back."

Then she stands herself, and her five crew members join her.

"Now, you said you were having trouble with your food supply. How many people could this base theoretically support, if every scrap of it was used to house things?"

The question sets the woman back a moment, but she rallies quickly enough.

"This base was originally also intended to be safe from orbital bombardment, at least to a point. Therefore its use as a civilian shelter was built into the lowest levels. Due to water rationing on our well and filters, I don't think we could support more than at most five hundred thousand souls here for any length of time and we would have trouble feeding that many for more than a week. Currently, the base has a remaining force in total of eleven thousand soldiers, only a third of which I would describe as 'field ready.' Many are hurt and recovering while many more are simply not true field personnel. Handing a physician or an engineer a rifle can theoretically make them capable, but it is a horrible waste of their other talents, despite this."

Alex nods, half to herself. "In the morning, send one of your doctors to my truck and I'll see about getting my people with the healing aura to do a walk-through on your hospital. At the very least it'll deal with anything minor. Once you have a better idea who has the major hurts, let me know and I'll try to work something out to get them back on their feet as well. For your food issues, I can make enough things that will allow for magical food generation to keep your current complement fed in about two days, and I can increase that potential number by about another two thousand a day and continue to get other things done thanks to a trick that one of the heroes taught me. As for water, I can get you set up for unlimited water pretty easily. I'll make the device tonight and we can install it tomorrow. Is there anything else pressing? I think we are all pretty tired."

Kurin glances her way. "I am actually not doing too bad. If the Matriarch is willing I will do my walk-through on the medical wing now and go to bed in a few hours."

Calia is nodding in the background like a demented bobblehead. "I can go as well. In truth, the day back has been more relaxing than anything, even given the circumstances."

Buffy nods after she and Kendra share a look.

"We are pretty much in the same boat. Plus, we're used to long nights. So nothing new there. Between the four of us it shouldn't take long."

Alex nods. "Fair enough. I've spent the day dealing with two other dimensions and shopping. I'm freaking exhausted and I'll see you all tomorrow early."

With that, she and Willow step out of the room, heading back towards the truck and relative peace.

Relative, of course, is the word in question here. It takes her over an hour and a half to get the last of the trunks figured out and to get an assurance from Hermione that they won't need to worry about adding a magic power collector to the trunks for months, it's just something that they did need to make sure stayed on the itinerary so it didn't result in a catastrophic failure somewhere down the line.

Then she starts them making field provisions boxes, water generators that shut off automatically when they are submerged, and finally the bits and bobs needed to upgrade another fifteen of Mileeni's troops with her version of a back-mounted weapon rack.

Then, finally, she gets to bed.

>>>>

Not that you'd notice. There is beating on her door what seems like only a few hours after she had laid down for the night.

"Wha id it?"

The knocking comes again, this time backed by Buffy's voice.

"Get up! We let you sleep as long as we could, but now we have doctors showing up with patients and that Engineer Lead whatever is back to give you a hard time again."

Cracking her eyes open, Alexis groans.

No rest for the weary. And it'll only get worse. In two days, she'll be in the thick of it with everybody else. Best to make the time in the base count. Then she smirks, thinking.

She has a teleport pad on the truck, and she has a second one on the shuttle. While they still require being immobile for three hours to automatically calibrate after each time they are moved around in relation to the planet they are on, and they only store technically a mile of transport a minute to a cap of not more than three hundred thousand miles? These two are capped. She hasn't used either of them for over a year. And she can make one that will be left in the base here without any trouble. She'll get them started on that as part of tomorrow's upgrades.

She cleans up, pastes a smile on her face as best she can, and opens the door.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 18
Tech Talk and a Love Connection.

>>>>

Two days later, Alexis is ready to fall over and die from absolute exhaustion. Because she is the only one there that can do the things that she does she is obviously in high demand by, well, everybody.

When she'd woken up a couple of days ago to Buffy beating on her bedroom door she'd known she was going to work herself half to death and in some ways, she was even looking forward to it. Getting her hands dirty has always been fun for her. Drawing up designs and pushing the boundaries is what makes being an artificer the best job in the galaxy.

But that's not how it worked out.

First, she stepped off and was all but overrun by wounded Asari on crutches, in wheelchairs, missing eyes or limbs. A few that are so bedridden that they can't actually get up and had to be wheeled to her by their doctors.

Alex goes first to the ones that have bits missing off of them or that are bedridden. The truth is that she can help all of them, but not right now. The 'regenerate' that would set most of them right is too high of complexity to put on a daily use 'schema.' This makes it extremely expensive, and so over the years she has only ever made two items that can cast it once a day each.

You don't even have to be a caster to do it. It's pretty much point and click. She still has them on the key chain of healing and bad status effect removal stuff, but after those two all she has left is standard healing magic, the few disposable scrolls from the old days, and ways to keep somebody alive until she can use 'regenerate' again. She does what she can, and then tells them to come back in two days and she'll set right whoever is left.

Even with the bankroll she has at the moment and the situation that she is in, an item that can cast 'regenerate' all day every day is still crazy expensive. But so worth it. She'll have to wait until tonight to get them started on it though since they won't get done with the rest of the first batch of stuff until that evening. So far all she has access to is what was accomplished in the first eight hours through the trunks.

Then she spends over four hours trying to explain to the Engineer in charge that her willingness to dedicate some portion of her people and manufacturing capability to making these wonderful devices of Alex's won't actually be happening. After beating her head against the woman's unwillingness to believe that this isn't possible for entirely too long, she finally gives up and explains by saying that it is a special ability trained to a high degree by only a few, and it uses principles not entirely dissimilar to Biotics in the sense that training or even the tools alone won't always get you there. While she feels a little bad stretching the truth like that, she consoles herself in the fact that it wasn't like the lunatic gave her an option.

The speculative look she gives Alex when she's finally had that beaten into her skull, then the smile and the fact that she became significantly nicer all of a sudden actually scares Alexis more than the Reapers do. Or at least as much. That she is now getting similar looks of varying degrees from more than half of the Asari in engineering and fabricating doesn't make her feel any better about things.

After that fiasco and when the Wrights hit the sixteen-hour mark, exiting with stacks and stacks of the food boxes that are being pulled from three portable holes that are earmarked "temporary storage" in the manifest, she ends up delivering three hundred and thirty-five field provisions boxes to the people that work in supply. Explains how they work and that each one would feed fifteen people three square meals in a day out of what it produced. It won't be gourmet fare, but it'll keep them alive and fighting. She also lets them know that she'll be bringing the same amount again tomorrow, and as many as a hundred each day after that until she either runs out of crafting supplies or they don't need anymore.

She doesn't actually tell them that for the current little while, at least, her supplies are functionally unlimited. They just require that she hop back to Harry and Kara's place to pick up more when the orders come in. The couple, especially after seeing just how bloody the war actually is, gave her almost unlimited funds for all practical purposes. They would prefer that she didn't dig into the principal amounts on their investments if it can be helped, but the interest is hers until the current crisis is over. Since she would need to be significantly more extravagant in her style before that is likely to be a concern for at least a few weeks, even at her current production rates, that is about as close to unlimited as it is likely possible for her to get.

Getting the water storage squared away was significantly more of a pain in the ass than she had thought it would be simply because the Asari don't have a 'well.' They have 'wells.' Over forty of them that feed as many different reservoirs and the plumbing that flows from them does not intermingle until it is heading to sanitation. At first, Alexis thought this must be a way to remove the possibility that poisoning a single water tank would kill off the entire base. While the lead engineer that is assisting her admits that kind of thing was likely a consideration, she also points out that in a system that stretches from nearly five hundred meters up the inside of a mountain, and down under the mountain and additional thousand meters, certain realities must be observed. Namely, in order to try to do things with a single water tank on the top level of the base like she is suggesting the water pressure on the bottom would likely be enough to cut steel were the plumbing to spring a leak.

In the end, while she had originally made five water generators with the intention that they would all go into one massive super-sized water tank, she instead separates them out to comfortably fit and keep full the two bottom-most that supply the emergency civilian living quarters, one for the mess hall's water tank. One for the hospital, and finally the last one went to the water tanks that feed the fabrication center in engineering. When the lead engineer learned that the water that came out was pure to a degree that isn't seen in nature and difficult to recreate in a lab, she pretty much demanded it. Apparently not having to use expensive and hard-to-replace filters on some of their liquid-cooled hardware was appealing to the woman. She pencils into her planner a need for at least forty more, with the understanding that some areas of the base will likely need a few of them to stay ahead of demand if they were ever going to be able to shut off the well pumps altogether.

Finally, just as she is debating whether or not to go to the cafeteria to deal with her hunger, she hears her Wrights exiting the last trunk for the final time that day. Glancing quickly at her Omni-tool for the time, she hangs her head. It's after ten. Stepping out of the living quarters and into the cargo area, she can see that fully half the heroes are already in here and asleep. Most of them look unhappy, but then, it is a war. They aren't generally pleasant things. Quietly giving her minions their new orders, she moves the crafting trunks outside the truck and after collecting the last load of goodies for the day sends them back in after they restock the portable holes with what they'll need.

All nine of them. Twelve if you count the ones that were supposed to be for temporary storage, which she notes that they also fill. She has thirty portable holes, and it would seem that she needs about three times that number unless she wants to make trips back every few days. The logistics of keeping up with this kind of crafting output is insane.

Setting aside the pieces she'll need to be installing in the backpack gun racks for tomorrow, she'd gone to bed. Sleep, she decided, was more important than food just now.

The next morning was, if anything, worse. On the plus side, the Wrights had finished the "regenerate" tool first. Thankfully they had managed to start that one at the sixteen-hour mark the day before. So she takes that down to the infirmary and in less than four hours has the entire place cleared. Six hundred patients, all waiting for cybernetic replacements of one sort or another, and a couple that had taken wounds in the torso and needed donors to replace organs. Suddenly all with a clean bill of health.

Now she's getting as much or more attention from the Asari medical personnel as she is from the engineering corp. Not that they had ever ignored her, they'd all read the reports. But there is a significant difference between a report and watching somebody that pretty much needed their entire digestive system, as well as their right leg, replaced suddenly getting up and excitedly chirping that she actually felt better and stronger than she did before she'd been nearly killed by an errant grenade.

The looks, nudges, giggles that they think she doesn't hear, and random speculation about her biology in terms that make Alexis think that at least a few of them are far more interested in it than she wishes they were are happening with disturbing regularity by the time she is fleeing back to the truck.

Where, of course, she finds the boss engineer again

Taking the fifteen sets of augmentations with her, the two head back to the woman's desk in a corner of the shop and Alex tries to lay out what she thinks she can do.

>>>>

"Okay, so, these are the basic mods that I think are kind of essential to have peppered through your ranks. Maybe squad leaders at least. The first is the 'chill metal' for the ability to use the old, cool guns rather than the lame new ones that require bulky ammo. Also worth noting is that once this unit is active, it'll affect anything within range that has the targeting rune etched on it. Granted, that range is only maybe thirty feet, but I would think that with some training in small unit tactics it could be pretty effective. Remember, the old guns still work just like they used to. The old heat sink is still there, all I did was etch the rune onto it. So if we can train your people to use the weapons sparingly like they used to have to when they are too far from their commander and only lay on the trigger when they are all within thirty feet of her, I have to say that I see some potential."

Alexis accepts a cup of what the locals are calling tea. It has sufficient caffeine to be worth imbibing, but the celery, orange, turnip combo taste it offers is definitely an acquired one.

"Second, the 'protection circles' that clear out the Reapers mind control crud."

She swirls her tea in her cup and debates asking for some that she can store to eventually give it to Giles. Turnips are an English thing, aren't they? Maybe he'd love the stuff.

"Third is the healing aura. It's a slow regeneration, but it'll reach out up to ten feet from the pack it's installed on and it increases the healing of the most hurt six people in its range that aren't already being targeted."

She takes a sip. "Assuming that there are no serious problems, like missing limbs or something, the system can take a person on death's door and put them back in fighting shape in maybe ten or fifteen minutes. There are things it can't do, but I'm betting it'll be nice to have out there."

She sighs and leans back. She is getting into unknown territory here, for her at least. She went from a fantasy of supplying hardened adventurers, any one of which was more than a hundred times as dangerous as any peasant, to helping Slayers. Where the disparity was even worse. She is used to taking a few people and turning them from effective combatants to combat gods.

But this is an army. Against an enemy that can kill you from space, if you get a little unlucky. How much is it truly worth it to dump any more than this into any given soldier? But again, she isn't the expert. So she'll have to run it by somebody that is an expert to find out. With a little trepidation, she pulls out the list that she compiled of things that she could fairly easily create for them. It would just take forever in build time that could be better put to feeding people as near as she can tell. Handing the woman the notepad, she can already see her looking confused.

"What's this? I can't read this."

Alexis rolls her eyes. Her personal magic-based translator system works so well that she forgets sometimes. Taking the list back, she clears her throat.

"This is a list of enhancements that I can add to a suit of armor that I thought we might want to look into. Just be advised that when I start tacking this kind of thing on, the cost and time to get it done go into the stratosphere."

Glancing down at the pad, she grimaces a bit. It might not be the English the poor woman couldn't read. It could very well be her own chicken scratches were the culprit.

"First, I can make the wearer able to fly. It isn't fast, about the same as a fast walking speed. But it is silent, gets you off the ground so you aren't leaving tracks or scent, and is pretty useful for getting and keeping high ground. The fact that you don't need to worry so much about heights is a nice bonus too."

The woman on the other side of the work table that is masquerading as a desk has been joined by a second, and then a third during her explanation.

"Next, I can mystically increase the physical capabilities of your soldiers. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution. No worries, easily done. Just expensive."

A fourth has joined the mob, and she is speaking quietly with the third.

"I can increase the damage absorption from ranged attacks by a bit, and if I work out the design properly I think I can have that be inside the force field that you use. It isn't a perfect defense, it can be overpowered and even just whittled down with enough damage. But it seems to me that having it is better than not as a backup for when your tech-based shields are down."

Idly stirring her tea with a finger makes her wish she was using her own damn mug at the truck. If she was, it would still be too damn hot to stir with her freaking finger.

"I can add a deflection bonus, to make it less likely you'll take a damaging hit. I can give the wearer a temporarily hardened skin, so if something makes it through it's less likely to be too damaging. I can include my communications gear, which only has a range of about a mile but is completely impervious to hacking, jamming, blocking, or any other attempt to make it not work. I can outfit them with a voice-activated short distance teleport, useful for getting out of a tight spot. Theoretically, I could even give them basic invisibility. It fails if you attack anything while it's up, but until then consider it a perfect optical camouflage. There's more, but that is the most obvious stuff."

Alexis is starting to get a little nervous. Some of the now eight engineers on the other side of the table, behind their boss, are starting to look at her as if she might be on the menu.

"The last thing I was considering I am really not sure if it would work or not. But I have a spell called 'telekinesis' that I can cast and potentially build into a helm or some other piece of armor that might be able to be used with your biotic abilities. Give you more range, more lifting, pushing, or pulling power with them. That would be really expensive, but I thought I would throw it out there in case you were interested in working with me to co-develop something like that."

The pit boss looks around when Alex gets done talking and gives a piercing whistle that makes everybody else in the shop jump.

"Get back to work, all of you! We have a war to win, and we aren't going to win it by gossiping with your eyes already going black, now are we?" She calms slightly as they scurry off back to work and then shakes her head and gives Alexis an apologetic look.

"Sorry about that. They are a good crew, I swear. They are just feeling their biology a little bit with you in the room."

Alexis looks at her in absolute confusion. "Huh? I'm sorry, what? And what was that 'eyes going black' thing?"

The woman looks almost startled for a second as if she hadn't considered that Alexis wouldn't know. Then she laughs, and it's a loud, boisterous laugh. She almost reaches the point where she is tearing up before she is able to hold it back.

"Oh my Goddess." She chuckles a bit again and then continues. "You pick up things so fast and are so highly skilled in your areas of expertise that it's easy to forget that our entire culture is a complete unknown to you."

She snorts into her tea as she takes a sip. "It doesn't help that you've managed to accomplish more towards the survival of our species in less than a month and a half than we managed since the original attack on the Citadel, years ago. The idea that anyone that didn't really know us would go as far as you have? Well, it's more than a little inspiring, to be honest. I know I must come across as an ass sometimes, but most of that is just me trying to fight a learning curve to understand what you can do. I apologize in any case."

Alex nods but says nothing hoping that the woman will continue. After a few moments she does, with a sigh.

"You need to understand that as a species, we are driven to find mates with power. Intellectual, physical, political, economic. It really doesn't matter. Sadly, what our culture has done with this inherited trait makes it even worse. When an Asari mates with someone other than another Asari with the intention of having children, it's nice if the other person stays. We love it if they do, we are a very passionate people. But when they realize that all the children that are being produced have our blue skin, many of them, even most, well, they feel their own biological imperatives kicking off and they'll leave to find a mate with which they can actually create a child of their own race."

She swirls her tea twice as if trying to decide if the rest of it is something she wants badly enough to risk getting the dregs in her mouth. In the end, she decides no and puts the cup down.

"Then understand that we have lost a third of our population as of two days ago. Closer to half, if you only count Thessia. By this point, well over a third of the total population of our species, wiped out. In a low population situation, which this is rapidly becoming, the need to mate becomes stronger. And then add in you."

She smirks at the blush growing on Alexis' cheeks.

"An alien from another dimension that can perform miracles in medicine and physics. Is incredibly competent in things that no Asari has even heard of and that she has verified have a biological component, has the clout somehow to go into a new dimension and come back two weeks later with enough muscle to destroy Reapers by the hundreds. Is generous, compassionate, and cute besides."

She leans back in her chair and flashes Alexis a grin.

"When Asari meld with another being, our eyes go black. I believe it has something to do with the process not wanting to be distracted by whatever the ocular nerve is trying to pass along, but during the deed, we only see the one with us and we see them utterly. Inside and out. I think I heard a human soldier once say something along the lines of 'She was so wet she had goo running down her thigh.' The 'eyes going black' comment was basically the same thing, just less visceral."

Alexis feels like she is about to faint.

"All of them feel like that? But... I'm married!"

The engineer, who Alex has just remembered is named Jalayae, laughs again, though not nearly as long or loud.

"Yes, most of us here do. I've heard rumors that about half the medical staff are desperately trying to come up with a way to propose as well. But if it makes you feel any better, your wife has gotten more than a few curious looks from the fifty or so members of our intelligence service. Some of her technological shenanigans are getting noticed. Buffy and Kendra have their fair share of admirers as well. They routinely make our best commandos look like babes in the woods, and they manage to do it without biotics even." She sighs.

"Without a doubt though, the one getting the most attention is your 'Superman.' Not only does he account for more than a third of the Reaper kills by himself, but as near as we can tell, he's the only one of these crazy powerful aliens you've brought back that is actually single."

She shrugs at Alex's look as the artificer points to herself.

"You'll note that nobody has come over and dragged you into a closet yet. We are civilized, after all, and you are married." She pauses and smiles when Alex realizes that the word 'yet' was used.

"That all being said, and now that I know for a fact that you understand the situation, if your wife is okay with it I would absolutely love to be your first Asari."

This last bit is spoken with a bit of a smokey undertone and half-closed eyes that are beautifully placed over an uncomfortably suggestive quirk of her lips.

Alexis does the only thing she can think of to do.

She runs away, and Jalayae's laughter follows her for entirely too long.

Thank the Goddess that Xander and his army are due to arrive later, maybe they can distract all of these incredibly hot, sensual, sexy as hell space babes that want her for no strings attached carnal tomfoolery.

She stops. Thinks for a minute. Shakes her head and continues her hike at a somewhat more sedate pace. If you had told her when she was fifteen that she would be fleeing something like that, she'd have called you a loon.

She might need to talk to Willow. For the sake of the Asari's survival, they may have to allow themselves to be ravished.

Now how to make that sound less... Bad.

As it turns out, she didn't have to try very hard. Willow stands, gives her a hug and a smooch, and smirks.

"I know."

Alex is more than a little lost. "Am I the only one around that hasn't figured this shit out?!"

Willow laughs. "Honestly, I really thought you knew. I mean, you all but guaranteed it would happen when you said yes to us taking two Asari with us when we left. That birth defect they were talking about doesn't happen unless Asari are making children with each other. It isn't like they would have had a whole huge number of options if they wanted to avoid that happening. Pretty much just us Scoobies. Maybe a few members of the Initiative if we read them in on this."

She laughs. "Honestly, I think the only reason that Calia hasn't been working on us is that she hasn't decided for sure yet whether or not she wants to come with us when we leave."

Alexis shakes her head. "But we're here to win this. She won't have to leave at all!"

Willow shrugs. "Maybe not, but I'll lay you good odds that Kurin will be coming along when we head out, and I am expecting that Calia will too. I heard them talking about it, and Kurin pointed out that even if we win against the Reapers now, having all the members of your species all in one dimension isn't the best that they can do to make sure the species thrives. The Reapers themselves pretty much drive her point home, I think."

Then Willow leads her over to the couch and puts her hands around Alex's.

"As soon as I realized there were good odds that we would be the 'fathers' of an offshoot branch of the Asari people, I did a bunch of research. While I won't lie and say I am entirely thrilled by the concept, I'd be way hypocritical if I called you out on it because I am pretty curious myself. Their version of sex is more or less a mental connection that promotes bliss and some full-body heavy petting. Basically, they do the mind-to-mind equivalent of drugging you to a happy stupid level, and then masturbating you to get at your 'genetic material'. There is no possibility of disease, and if there was you could cure it anyway. There is no chance of one of us getting pregnant. Aside from feeling responsible for the offspring if there are any, there is basically no downside as long as you and I are both okay with it."

Alexis nods. "And are you?"

Willow smirks. "Okay with it? Yeah, like I said I am pretty curious myself. The only things stopping me from just throwing myself at the tech monkeys that come by to bother me every now and again is not knowing how you'd feel about it and not being really keen on leaving a child of mine here when we do leave. How about you, are you okay with it? Like, really okay and not 'oh Goddess I can't believe I did this' okay?"

Alexis nods slowly, with the beginnings of a fairly massive shit-eating grin starting to form.

"You know, I think I am."

>>>>

Author's note:
Wanted to get the weirdness of how I generally see Asari functioning out of the way first.
Remember, this is a race whose most likely professions before the age of three hundred include stripper and prostitute. I genuinely don't think I am that far off the mark here.
Reviews and recommendations are always appreciated!

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 19
The Dogs of War.

>>>>

In the end, the two make their way to the bedroom to reassure each other that indeed, no random blue sex bombs will be tearing them apart. After that, they doze for a little under an hour before the beeping that lets Alex know there is a call on the dimensional communicator coming in.

Dragging herself from the bed plus a quick cleansing charm gets her most of the way to her door. Summoning her battle dress to her body rather than taking the time to put her clothes back on handles the rest of the details, and she makes it to the coms station next to Willow's computer area in less than a minute all told.

"You've reached the truck, Alexis here." Peering at the tiny screen they have attached directly to the system for personal calls that don't require the wall screen, she brightens up considerably.

"Hey! Mutt-Xander. I take it you are on your way?"

He gives a laugh and responds with a smirk.

"Mutt-Xander? That's how it is? I take it the other one is Super-Xander then? And you're Boob-Xander?"

Alexis rolls her eyes. "I already have a name that separates me from you two reprobates. But we need some way to differentiate between the two of you. You look almost identical, for crying out loud."

Still chuckling, he shrugs. "Whatever you say, I generally make it a point to not argue with the ladies. And yeah, we'll be showing up in about ten minutes if you're sure there is enough room for us wherever you are."

He looks a little annoyed. "I wasn't able to secure a whole lot of bipedal assistance, unfortunately. Giles went full-on panic mode when I asked for volunteers to hop over to another dimension again so soon. But you'll have myself and Dawn there, as well as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl. They were heroes before she even got called as a slayer, and she's the most dangerous thing I've ever met under a thousand pounds. He was the one with the jet pack on the hell dimension we met in. Baseline human, but he's had his ass beat so many times that half his bones are plated in titanium and you pretty much have to cut a limb off for him to feel it. Nerve damage or something. For somebody without powers, he's a remarkably tough little shit and those mini-guns of his have made the difference a few times, no joke."

Alexis grins. "I'm betting we can upgrade the hell out of that guy's stuff. And yeah, we are ready pretty much whenever. There won't be room to run a super-mutt Olympics or anything, but the space we're in is a spaceship hangar. I want to say the portion of it that has been allotted to us is about a half-mile square? I've put together a place for them to do their business next to an expanded sewer drain with constantly flowing water so we can just hose it all off a few times a day, but beyond that, I wasn't really sure what you would need. Though, be advised that the next few days are going to be pretty damn busy. I don't really have any intention of losing troops if it can be avoided, so I've been doing a bit of prep work to set up for your arrival."

Xander raises an eyebrow. "How so?"

Alex shrugs. "Forty thousand suits of self-adjusting armor that are enchanted to keep the wearer comfortable and clean even in conditions where they have to leave it on for weeks at a time seemed worthwhile. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time or the bankroll to completely outfit your pooches like I would have liked, but the locals have said that they are willing to help with tech stuff that might work for them too. So hopefully we can get everything squared away within like I said, a few days. And then we can go on the offensive for realsies."

Xander smiles. "That works. Dawn is coming over now and you can tell her the best place to set up the portal. She's putting a bit more juice into it than normal so it can be semi-permanent in case more of our people want to stop by or we have anybody that would rather not be sleeping in a giant concrete pit when they are off duty."

Alex nods hesitantly. "Doesn't bother me any, but it's not my base. We'll have to run it by the Asari in charge after we get your people somewhat settled."

A quick exchange of smirks, and then Dawn walks into the room from the back.

"Hey, I'm here! So where do we want the puppypocalypse?"

Alex gets up, smiling. "You have a name for this? That's awesome. Anywhere within the orange tape that they put up for us. That's our area, pretty much." She walks up to the younger woman and gives her a quick hug that is gleefully reciprocated. "Thanks for the help. The big bad-asses from super's land can deal with the Reapers, hopefully. But we seriously need to start getting the Asari that are left in safer places, protected-like. And the hero's can't really do that, kill Reapers, and defend the base all at the same time. It's going to fall to us and the base's normal personnel to do that, and we really need to get to it as soon as we can. They've already lost more than half the population of the planet to these dick wads and it's only been a few months."

Dawn's face crumbles a bit from her usual chipper self.

"And how many is that?"

Alexis sighs. "Billions, here. But there are something like fifteen or so intelligent races in the galaxy right now and they are all getting hammered. Most of them are in worse shape than the Asari, at least from what I hear. Or they were until I showed back up."

Dawn frowns a little. "What did you do to make things worse?"

Alex shrugs and manages a smirk despite the seriousness of the conversation.

"I brought people here that can kick Reaper ass. I think it put whatever is ultimately behind this into a bit of a frenzy. Forces from all over the galaxy are getting redirected here in droves. Good for everyone else, but it makes Thessia the most highly contested scrap of dirt that has ever existed, most likely."

Dawn nods, her frown softening into a sad look.

"Well, let's see what we can do."

Then she steps out and walks about a hundred feet from the truck towards the nearest wall of the room. Looking towards the main doors towards the rest of the base, she can see that they are gathering a fairly large number of curious Asari that are standing around, quietly watching. Deciding to ham it up a little, she pricks her finger for the blood and then draws a line on the floor with it about forty feet long. That much was required. The blood-curdling scream and collapsing on the floor next to the now opening green tear in the fabric of dimensions was probably not, and when a rather rugged looking human that looks like one of their Reaper killers walks in flanked by a massive hyena-like shape on one side and a short, purple wearing girl with a long-bladed spear on the other, the Asari watching start to get even more interested. The green and yellow-wearing human wearing a massive metal backpack with what looks like old-style multi-barrel guns on it is a bit of a surprise as well. But nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare them for what comes through next.

Appearing at the edge of the shimmering, seemingly two-dimensional mass that is the portal are dogs. Huge, powerful-looking animals marching in ten wide formations that are ten animals deep. Of course, they knew that this would be happening, word had gotten out after all.

But the numbers. It seems like it never ends.

Three groups of a hundred make it through every minute. It still takes almost two and a half hours to get them all through.

Then they spend an hour getting out seven hundred customized field provision boxes. Heavy on the protein and with a lip over the edge on the top front so they can be nosed open and a lid that automatically closes if nobody is eating. Their water is a hundred-foot-long trough with a water generator on one end and a spout that dumps into the drainage system on the other.

Finally, after collecting Dawn from where she has been playing up her apparent infirmity among many concerned Asari while she lets her ability recharge some, they open a second portal to Harry and Kara's place. It takes a bit, bringing over the armors as well as the rest of the food boxes as only a quarter of the ones that they needed would fit in the four portable holes she was dedicating to it.

Finally, as the rest of the bipeds are unpacking the armors, Alex hands Xander the microphone for the public address system she installed on the truck after the third time that they had tried to go on a vacation and ended up part of disaster relief efforts.

And now she knows that hurricanes suck, thankyouverymuch.

Xander takes the cordless microphone and after grinning his thanks, leaps the fourteen feet to get on top of the truck.

Needless to say, this gets him a lot of looks from all the locals.

He then starts speaking, and if it wasn't for the tone he uses or the way these animals and he obviously adore each other, it would be easy to make some bad assumptions about his character. As things stand though, it is pretty obvious he loves them all like they were his children.

"Okay all you furballs, listen up!"

The entire place is suddenly as quiet as a tomb.

"These ladies that are among you now are called Asari. They are who we are here to save, and there is, as I understand it, quite the fight waiting for us outside these walls."

Forty thousand doggy and kitty and whatever-y grins meet that statement.

"These bad guys use guns, bombs, and other things that can hurt and kill you from a distance. So Alexis here has made you all some armor. You will wear it. You will wear it at all times when you are here in this dimension because I will be damned if I will have to go back to the rest of your pack and tell them half of you died of anything as stupid as misplaced pride. Am I understood?"

The Asari, who had rather thought this was all for show as these are obviously just highly trained animals are astonished at the three-second cacophony that erupts in the form of forty thousand 'Yip!' sounds that are the hell-mutts response.

"Getting you all suited up is going to take something just this side of eternity, and I can't see any reason for you to all be sitting around bored in line. We'll take a hundred at a shot and see if we can get through this as quickly as possible. Remember to be vocal if something is pinching or doesn't feel right, these people aren't like me. They can't understand you. So you'll need to work on your communication skills. First group, fall in. Everybody else, get some food, rest up. This is gonna be one for the history books before we're done."

Again the Asari are astounded as the animals go from what could be charitably referred to as a sitting version of parade rest to rampaging around within the orange lines they have been given as boundaries. One of the Asari walks over to Xander as he is hopping down to help with the armors.

"Hello there. My name is Jalayae, and I was wondering if I could ask you about these creatures?"

Xander shrugs with a huge smile on his face. He loves talking about his family these days, however extended they have become.

"Sure, love to. Maybe you can help us out while we do it by getting some people to assist in getting them armored up? I'd like to sleep at some point in the next week."

With a smile and a nod, she taps some buttons on her Omni-tool and within a few minutes, there are about two thousand more Asari in the room getting directions from Alexis. Once it is obvious that she has made good on his request, she continues.

"Not intending to be rude, but how intelligent are these creatures? And why do they look so different, are they different species?"

Grinning as he does up the buckles that will hold on the segmented backplate to what would appear to be a three hundred pound black panther made of mostly muscle and bone, he responds in between attempts to avoid the tongue of the animal as it appears to be trying to lick him to death.

"Smarter than they look, but not rocket scientists. Honestly, it is kind of an unfair question. We, or at least humans, are sight-oriented bipeds that can live as long as eighty to a hundred years without half trying. They are scent-oriented quadrupeds that depending on the nature of where their specific genes come from can live anywhere from fifteen to fifty years as near as we can tell. To answer your question in a way you'd maybe prefer though, I can tell you that we have been able to teach them to read, they know the basics of most things they are likely to run into, and there are a few that have even shown an interest in math and the sciences. Without thumbs or any way to send them to college, I'm not sure what we can really do with that. But their unique insight into things can sometimes be pretty handy."

He finishes up with the current animal, kisses it once on the nose, and pats it on the back as he sends it away and motions over the next one.

"As for the look of them and their race? That's kind of a sticky question. Originally the parents a bunch of generations ago were a genetically modified bitch and a hellhound. A demon in dog form. But because of the specific demonic DNA in them, they can breed with just about anything. So we pretty much let them, unless it is going to cause problems with other people. The result is what you see here."

He is trying to fit the next set around the girth of a massive, tusked, wild boar looking thing and is secretly pretty thankful that as soon as he has at least one buckle done up, the whole thing resizes to a perfect fit. He laughs and pushes the huge snout away when in its excitement the creature manages to inhale some of his hair. The Asari is looking at him speculatively.

"I run the engineering and maintenance departments here. I have to tell you when Alex was requesting our assistance getting these creatures kitted out and then I saw them, I wasn't sure what I could reasonably use. But if you say they can read, then I am seeing possibilities." She shakes her head and stands upright, letting the smaller, maybe two hundred and fifty-pound fox-like creature scamper away with the new duds on.

"But just be advised that while I do have some ideas, I have neither the supplies nor the manpower to roll anything out to your entire compliment."

Xander nods, getting up to stretch himself for a moment while the next candidate prances up.

"I figured as much, and I get it. You need to keep your own soldiers in good shape too. Honestly, the armor will help a lot against enemies with guns, but I'm not really sure what else they would need anyway. They're fairly sturdy and they'll heal from just about anything short of actual death. But just for the sake of making conversation for the next six hours while we do this, what kind of things were you thinking of?"

She nods and gets started on a rather squat, round, creature that she has no idea what it might be but that Xander recognizes as one of the armadillo breeds. He still doesn't know how in the hell a three hundred pound hell-mutt managed to get romantic with a twenty-pound armadillo, but he brought it back to base like they are supposed to and they kept an eye on the expecting mother.

The result, this slow but nearly indestructible six hundred pound behemoth with eight-inch thick regenerating demonic plate that covers most of its hide makes these the undisputed kings of being able to just straight up ignore what the world is doing to them and continue waddling along forward towards their objective. Their offense isn't great, but it's enough. Armadillo come with a rather impressive set of digging claws that the demonic essence has reworked into suitable weapons, and they have the same overbuilt jaw that all the mutts do, in them packed with a combination of mostly grinding teeth and a few sharp incisors.

"Well, as an example, how strong is this guy here and how smart is he?"

Xander laughs at the animal's huffy little yipping sound.

"Well, first off this is a girl. And she is pretty damn smart, actually. Able to read and do basic math, anyway. Pretty good for a three-year-old. As for her strength, it's immense. She's shoved trucks out of the way and plowed through brick walls on missions when she needed to in order to reach her objective. She is pretty slow, though. Just so you know. We've clocked her at about twenty miles an hour, but she can't keep that up for long."

When the armadillo looks at him as though betrayed, he smiles softly at her.

"Don't be like that, Peaches. You know it's the truth and we all love you anyway."

Looking somewhat mollified, the huge armored creature nudges him with her nose and then looks pointedly at Jalayae to get her moving again. The engineer does so, after offering the beast an affectionate pat.

"I don't know that we will have a whole lot of time to get things done, and I certainly don't want to give the impression that I am offering things when I am really only suggesting possibilities. Whether or not they can be made a reality depends somewhat on how things are going and how much time I can devote to what would legitimately be experimental hardware for an ally. Do you understand? I don't want any miscommunications here." At his smile and nod, she continues.

"Well, as an example of the kind of things I am talking about and with Peaches here in mind, what do you know of the Elcor and their Virtual Intelligence assisted assault cannons?"

Xander is now smirking at her with a boyish grin that is two parts bliss, two parts curiosity, and three parts 'bad boy.'

"I know nothing, but find myself highly intrigued. Please, tell me more."

>>>>

On the other side of the fitting area, Alexis is working next to Kick-Ass and trying to sort out for sure what she can do for him while she does it.

"So this flight pack you use, what are the capabilities of it?"

The green-clad hero shrugs in a rather self-deprecating way as he struggles to get a harness over the head of a hyper-excited gray wolf hybrid. On the smaller side compared to most at maybe two hundred pounds, but quick and with the same massive jaws they all have.

"Huh. Let me think for a second." He does up a buckle and scratches the animal behind the ears. "Top speed is about a hundred and twenty miles an hour, but at that speed, the fuel is only good for about twenty minutes of flight time. The guns are great, but the ammo capacity is pretty lacking if I'm honest. If I just lay on the triggers I've only got about twenty-three seconds worth of firepower before I'm dry. It's really just weight issues. I can't carry more fuel without making it too heavy, and trying to carry more bullets would be even worse. We thought about trying to swap to a smaller cartridge, but it's already using twenty-two caliber. Anything smaller than that and even at the rate of fire I've got it would be pretty worthless against the stuff we deal with."

He sighs. "If I'm honest, there are also cost considerations. Even firing the cheapest bullets available pretty much, this thing can drain a bank account during a short engagement. That little issue we were dealing with when we ran into you cost us more than seven thousand dollars in fuel and ammo, plus I had to go back to reload the thing with spare belts at least a dozen times."

He can't understand why she is looking so thrilled until she responds.

"So how would you like a pair of the local machine guns that are about ten times as damaging as what you're using and can fire non-stop for a half hour before you'll need to land somewhere and replace the ammo. Which I am guessing will take about thirty seconds, and you can carry a dozen hours of firing time worth on your person. Also, I can pretty easily increase your fuel capacity by a ridiculous amount and give you an alternate method of staying in the air. It isn't nearly as fast, but you can swap over to it when you aren't needing to get somewhere quickly. Or even better we can do a quick redesign so that the actual jet pack shuts off automatically below a certain speed, I could see it working out pretty awesome for you."

Then she frowns. "We are going to have to get all three of you into some real armor though. These rags you're wearing are just not sufficient for the battlefield we have ahead of us."

He shakes his head. "We tried armor before, the weight was too much. Made a mess of everything, and that was just a flak jacket and some pants with the ceramic insert things."

Alexis nods, waving off his concerns.

"Remember, your fuel weight will be dropping to nothing, and the weight of your guns without the ammo will be halved, plus the need to carry ammo at all will be done away with almost. Besides, I can enchant the armor to make it lighter. Hell, I might be able to include the pack itself in that. The thing must weigh at least fifty pounds completely empty. If I can enchant that down to say twenty-five, plus all the other changes? We could maybe double your top speed." She frowns as something occurs to her. "How do you aim the things?"

He shrugs, though if the truth were to be had he is getting a little excited.

"They only have three settings. Directly forward when you're standing, a forty-five-degree further up setting, and straight up. When you're in the air the other two settings are nice sometimes, but most of the time I am going slow enough when things are hot that I just have them facing forward so I can land or hover low and sweep an area." He laughs. "Each of the guns spits out four thousand rounds a minute and there are two of them. So it doesn't need to be that accurate to lay out some hurt. You just need to be really careful to check your backdrop. It's easy to hit friendlies with the thing. It hasn't happened yet, but there have been some close calls. You need serious trigger discipline too, or you can drain the ammo way too fast."

Alex nods in thought. "Well, I'll tell you what. I'll go ahead and cue up all the stuff I can do for you tonight, and then we'll head on over to the Asari engineering corp here on base and see if they can kludge together some kind of Omni-tool and heads up display assist for the thing. The battlefield is going to be crazy and there will probably be lots of civilians in the line of fire. We'll need to find a way to make you more accurate or we may not be able to use you much except in major engagements."

Then she turns to Hit-Girl who is trying to sort out how to get started fitting the main armor harness onto what looks for all the world to be an overly muscled, three hundred pound wiener dog.

"I see you have the spear, and I can definitely do something similar but enchanted and made out of some tougher materials. But other than that and some armor, is there anything else I can put together for you?"

The purple-clad warrior smirks at her.

"I want a pony with a built-in, high speed, vibrating, reversible dildo so I can go riding in every sense of the word at once. I'll probably need a box of those fuck 'n 'moist towelettes' to go with it."

She isn't sure what she really expected from Alexis when she said that, but for her to look shocked, then smirk, and then giggle herself silly for a few minutes while occasionally muttering "Moist... Towelettes..." was probably not it. Finally, when Alexis is able to speak coherently again, she tries to answer.

"Okay, then what else do you want that might be able to kill bad guys?"

The girl smirks, recognizing that the joke is now over.

"Honestly, I am familiar with and more than competent with every firearm worth bothering with in the American, British, Israeli, Russian, and German arsenals, and I haven't found one outside of that bunch that isn't similar enough to something I know about that I couldn't get good with it in ten minutes or less. For melee, I tend to prefer a longer weapon just 'cause I'm short and the reach is nice. But I can kill a person with a standard-issue number two pencil just as easily most of the time. My only requirement with armor is that you keep it as light as possible. I weigh about a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet and fully clothed. Anything that weighs more than maybe ten pounds throws my balance off something fierce, and then I end up actually needing the armor 'cause I'm getting knocked around all the fucking time."

Nodding in sympathy as she has heard this complaint many times before, Alexis points to Buffy and Kendra off to the other side a good fifty feet working on their own animals.

"That is pretty close to my standard, and Buffy is about your size. Think you would be okay in something like that?"

After standing to get a better look, the foul-mouthed spitfire of a Slayer offers a savage grin.

"What is that, magical skate dork armor?"

Laughing in response, Alexis can't help it and gasps "Buffy the skate dork?" before she sighs past a smile and responds.

"Actually, that is pretty much where we started, yeah. This is all custom built, a high-strength steel and adamantine alloy that for the mass is about fifty times stronger than tank armor. So far it's held up against everything the demons can throw at us. It'll stop everything short of a straight-up anti-material cartridge, and with the enchantments active it'll even stop that. Though I don't recommend testing it, you'll probably bust some ribs sucking an impact like that. But you'll live. How about I just set you up with the standard loadout that Buffy and Kendra use, and then we can reevaluate tomorrow night when it comes off the assembly and you get a chance to test it? As for the weapon, I can make a better version of your spear, or I can make just about anything else you like. But weapon enchantments get really expensive really fast, so you'll probably only get one melee weapon from me right now. So what'll it be?"

Considering her options for a minute, she shrugs a shoulder and points to the spear that is leaning against the wall behind her.

"If you think you can do better than that, I'd love to see it. The amount of demon blood that thing has spilled at this point has to be measured in metric tons."

Alexis smiles at the shorter woman. "Challenge accepted."

Ten minutes later, when Alexis has fit five more animals and still hasn't gone to talk with him, Kick-Ass speaks up.

"So, are you going to ask Xander what he wants? He'll be on the front lines, I promise."

Smirking, Alexis just shakes her head.

"He and I have already talked quite a bit about his wish list, in fact, I already have most of it built and what's left comes off the assembly tonight. I think he'll like it."

Hit-Girl raises an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

Alexis laughs. "Because I would."

The other two members of the conversation seem terribly confused by this but leave it alone. They have a hell of a lot of fur to armor before bed, after all.

>>>>

Author's note:
To put the numbers in a better perspective, the average attendance at an American football game is a touch under seventy thousand people.

Admittedly, that is almost double the forty thousand hell-mutts, but I think it gives you the idea. It's a hell of a lot of dogs.

As always, Reviews are appreciated. Coin of the realm, as they say.

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 20
The Rules.

>>>>

Kick-Ass, or Dave to those who know him personally is feeling a little out of his depth here. But Alexis is running the show and she'd asked him to come down here on this neat little earpiece she gave him. It's been two days since they'd arrived and they are due to start their first offensive in the morning, which gives him only a few hours today to figure out exactly what all they had done with his suit and jet-pack. After that, he'll need his sleep. The next few days are liable to suck serious amounts of ass. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that Alex is in here already, arguing with the lead engineer about something. He decides to just hang out and watch the fireworks for now, figuring that they'll get to him when they can. Alexis seems to have worked up a head of steam at this point.

"No, I don't think so, lady! I really don't give a shit what your Matriarch thinks about it. I have just dragged forty thousand and twenty-one fighters into a war they had no stake in whatsoever, and that's not even including the three I freaking arrived with! I am not going to be hiding in the goddamn base while they are out there bleeding for me. Not going to happen. As for your suggestions for the truck, if you can have them done by tomorrow, they can be made to be concealable, they aren't too heavy and either have their own power supply or the drain on the onboard is reasonable, I'll consider it. But otherwise, forget it."

Dave finds himself smirking slightly at the obvious frustration on the part of Jalayae, who is rubbing her eyes with her thumb and forefinger.

"It's not that simple. Honestly, the Matriarch doesn't want you or your truck leaving the base at all, for any reason. She still views the fact that you can squirrel a couple of us out to another dimension to be the current best chance for the Asari people to be able to eventually win this, even if the timeline is going to be fifty thousand years from now. It wasn't all her call, either. New orders from the top, I guess. They saw the video of Superman finally taking a hit from a Reaper main cannon and yeah, the fact that he survived was impressive as hell. But it was obvious he wouldn't have made it through a couple of follow-up strikes, and the only reason he made it back to base was that Green Lantern fellow bringing him here. Finding out that your 'heroes' aren't exactly invulnerable after all has their panties in a twist and now they want to make certain that the old plan is still viable."

Alexis glares at the woman.

"Well, you can pass up the chain for me that I don't really give a shit what they think. If they have the fucking nerve to push me on this, I'll take my toys and go home. I knew as soon as I started offering my help that I'd be getting into it with the idiots in command about this kind of thing, I've dealt with piss-ant shit heels overly impressed with the scent of their own crap for too long not to expect it. But I am not in their goddamn chain of command, I am a volunteer. If they fucking push me, I'll see to it the old plan is still go by asking Calia and Kurin if they wanna leave with me, spend a day getting everybody together, and we'll be fucking gone." She turns and starts stomping towards the door.

"If you can meet the prerequisites, I'll be at the truck in about an hour and we can roll out the paper and try to come up with some blueprints. But tomorrow morning, that truck is leaving. Either on a rescue and relief effort to the surrounding area or to take Superman and his people home. Your call which that is."

As soon as she is gone, Dave steps cautiously toward the engineer.

"So... I'd heard that you were ready for me, but I can come back later if now is a bad time."

The woman jumps a little, apparently startled when she hears the man speaking, and looks up. Her face loses some of its irritation when she sees him again and she mentally sighs when she takes in his new look. He went from looking like a bit of a fool in some kind of plastic and rubber bodysuit wearing an experimental flight pack probably doomed to explode if anything looked at it funny, into something that could be described, in a word, as lethal. Green and black brigandine armor with all the bells and whistles that Alexis can employ built into, but not overwhelming the look of, a removable chest plate so it doesn't get in the way of the flight apparatus. Rather than having his hand-held weapons on his back, he instead has a sidearm in a holster at his side and what looks like a shotgun in a larger holster strapped to the opposite leg.

Both of Asari make, and of the old designs, she notices. His helm is exactly what she needed, as she had made a request that his faceplate in its entirety be removable and gave specific dimensions on the size and shape so that she could modify an existing heavy combat setup that already had a heads up display rather than trying to build one from scratch on such a short time frame.

The particular part that she'll be using originally came from a helm used by the gunner of an open-sided aircraft that they had in service more than three hundred years ago, before they mothballed the lot of them and then eventually discontinued the practice of having gunners on vehicles that weren't completely behind the vehicle's armor altogether. The Matriarch's being so long-lived that they can remember the effectiveness of everything that had been used in the last thousand years meant that getting anything from a mothballed status to actually getting rid of it as old junk to be recycled can take more than eight hundred years sometimes. Annoying practice come inventory time, but it worked out for her now.

"No, come on in and sit down, we have a bit to go over." She pulls up her Omni-tool and hits a few keys. "I'm having one of my techs bring in your flight pack. Very interesting design, especially considering the limitations of the technology that they were obviously working with. We did what we could, but short of completely rebuilding and re-designing the unit on the whole, we were somewhat limited in what we could accomplish. But there is one thing I need to make clear from the outset. We don't actually have any of the fuel it uses. We stopped using fossil fuels over six thousand years ago for the most part. So you'll need to secure a supply from your home dimension I expect. Is that going to be a problem?"

Shaking his head, the man grins. "No, we should be fine. I have a pretty good supply of it just on the other side of our portal to home, and from what Alexis was saying, she is going to be removing the current fuel tank tonight in favor of one about a thousand times the size that somehow won't take up any space or weight." At her look, he offers a smile and puts his hands up in an apologetic gesture. "Don't look at me, I'm just repeating what I was told."

Jalayae just groans and leans back in her chair.

"Oh, I believe you. Never doubt that. The things she can do make me weep with wonder on a regular basis. She is just so headstrong sometimes. The woman has no business going out onto a battlefield to get herself shot at, we have soldiers that can do that job. Good ones that have trained for it for hundreds of years. She can do so much more good working here and she either can't see that or won't see it."

Deciding quickly that nothing good could come of him getting involved in that argument, he's absolutely as pleased as it is possible to be when another Asari brings over his pack. It's been strapped to a steel manikin framework that looks to him like it had previously spent some time at a firing range as a target. Immediately, he notices a few things are very different. Before he has a chance to ask, a second Asari comes in wheeling a parts cart with her that has laid out on it both of his old guns. Jalayae starts talking before he can even turn back to her.

"Thank you, ladies. Now get back to trying to figure out how we are going to hide the shield generator and cannon from one of the old 'PhaseStar' class ground attack fighters on Alex's truck, along with a power supply. I need it concealable, it can't change the footprint of the vehicle, and it can't cause any problems on the interior or that psychotic lunatic won't let us install the stuff."

The two Asari technicians look at each other, and one of them turns back to her with a finger raised. "Ma'am? That's not really possible."

Almost crying in her frustration, the lead engineer is again rubbing her eyes when she speaks again.

"I know, but we have orders from on high that if she absolutely feels she has to go out into the field, we are to install a main cannon of some sort and at the very least a decent shield generator. And to make it even more fun, Alexis wants to go out for her first run tomorrow morning. So I don't want to hear about how impossible it is, I want to hear the sound of your two beautiful minds figuring out how to make that work before the Matriarch has us all demoted to basic rifle carriers so we can continue trying to convince her to stay at the base while we are getting shot at trying to bodyguard her in the field."

Dave speaks up at this time. "So... Just out of curiosity, how much space would something like this take up? Because as much as she likes to use those portable hole things of hers for everything else, it'd seem like the way to do this would be to just mount one of those things on the roof and make the whole system pop up out of one of those when she needs it. I don't think she really cares what her truck looks like when she's driving around here, she just wants to be able to drive it around on the street when she gets back home."

All three Asari stop and stare at this low-tech if obviously incredibly brave human. For about five seconds, there is relative silence broken only by the sound of other engineers in the shop going about their tasks. Then Jalayae turns to the other two engineers and points to their drafting tables.

"Figure out what it is going to take to get this system to pop up out of a six-foot-wide by ten-foot deep cylindrical hole, and don't forget I want the whole thing armored and when the turret is down, I want the roof otherwise looking as normal as possible. Now go." She turns back to Kick-Ass. "Thank you. I think that might work, and I was legitimately at a loss as to how to make everybody happy in that mess."

He shrugs and a little self consciously squirms in his chair.

"It's nothing. I just figure the only way she'd let you put it on the thing is if she could actually take it off again easily, and the only way I could see that happening is if she could undo a few bolts, lift off a cover plate, and roll the thing up to put it in storage when she didn't need it. From everything I've heard, she isn't a fan of people permanently attaching things to her truck that she doesn't understand and she doesn't get most of this stuff any better than I do, she just has workarounds for most of it."

Dave doesn't quite get the reason behind the half-lidded eyes and the quirk of the woman's lips when she responds.

"Oh, yes she does." Then she shakes herself a bit and turns her attention to the flight pack. "But, that isn't why you're here. Let us deal with this for a bit."

Dave nods, perking up now that he is on more familiar territory.

"Yeah, I noticed that you replaced the guns, but I was expecting two of your assault rifles jammed on the shoulders somehow. What is this, exactly?"

The Asari stands and walks over to the unit.

"Well, when we went to replace your old weapons and removed the old ammunition, we realized for the first time just how much weight we really had to play with. And to be truthful and not trying to be rude, but also just how crappy the old guns really were for the weight you were dealing with to use them. We haven't used anything with damage to weight ratios this bad for something like five thousand years."

She stops for a moment and opens a small cover on the right shoulder.

"That being said, the reasons behind the design were both obvious and rather clever. When you are doing largely sweeping, flyover-style attacks it is pretty much essential to be able to spit as much firepower as you can in as short a time as you can so you can be guaranteed at least some of it ends up being useful."

She's pointing to various bits and pieces here and there as she continues. "To this end, and because we don't actually maintain an armament that has the absurd fire rate your guns do, preferring to just use better fire control systems so we don't miss as much? The only way we were going to get anywhere near the fire rate you had before was to replace the weight of your old guns with an equal weight of our old style of sub-machine guns. This means we stripped off the casings, hard wired the trigger mechanisms to the same trigger pull you used to use, and mounted them in a triangle formation on either side. Three on the bottom row, two on the middle, and the last aperture on top is actually part of the optical system that feeds to your new faceplate."

She taps the metal with a fingernail, causing a little 'ting' sound to ring out. "Then the whole mess is put in the armored housing you see here and then attached to the same mount that you used to use. We went ahead and increased the size of the ammo chamber to double size, so you can fit two blocks in it. This means that with Alexis' chill metal system activated you should be able to hold the trigger down for about an hour and a half before you'll need to reload. That was a consideration we decided on mostly because due to the configuration we went with, the reloading process requires the partial disassembly of the unit. Not quite field stripping, but close enough that it would be pretty inconvenient to have to do in combat. We are guessing with practice you could get it down to about six minutes, but you'll need to be able to take the unit off to do it."

She looks at him directly and motions him over, giving a quick demonstration of how the ammo blocks were removed and replaced. Legitimately it only takes her about two minutes to do the one side, but then the cover was already off plus the unit was sitting at a comfortable height to work with and held upright. He can see that in an actual combat situation it would be a serious pain in the ass.

"If it makes you feel any better about things, I can tell you that on a pure damage level, one of these little numbers does just slightly more than both of your old ones working together and at double the range you're used to. And you have ten of them."

She points to the rolling rack that has the old guns on it and removes a metal dust cover that looks for all the world like it was something that should be covering a meal at a hotel. Under it, he sees his replacement faceplate for when he's flying and what looks like an optional vambrace for his left arm. Once again, before he can get started on his questions she is already talking.

"The faceplate contains your heads-up display and also a microphone so the vertical traverse on your guns can be voice-activated. There's a box on the screen that is voice-activated and can show you a composite picture of what your guns are seeing, so you can strafe effectively in a cluttered environment such as a city without having to take your eyes off of where you are going. Your fuel indicator, thankfully, only keeps track of how much is put in versus how much is pumped out for the engine, so the fact that Alexis will be messing with the size of the tank shouldn't really matter. Your ammo indicators are a bar and a number. The bar is how much is left on the block, the number is which block you are on, either first or second. Technically you can set the system to fire fewer than the maximum number of guns, and if you do that there will be a second number of one through ten to let you know which gun status it is currently displaying and you can cycle through them on the Omni-tool that comes with the system."

She rolls her eyes. "But honestly I can't imagine why you would ever do that in this fight. Also, we went ahead and built in a system where if your overall speed drops below five miles an hour for more than ten seconds, the propulsion system on the pack will shut itself almost completely off, so you can rely on the flight from Alexis' enhancements. We couldn't shut it down all the way without it taking fifteen seconds to start up from scratch again, and we decided that was far too much of a risk to have in a combat environment. So we instead just dropped it to the minimum that the engine will deal with and not fail. A pilot light, if you like. At that level, it will go through a gallon of fuel about every third day so it should still do the job of stretching your fuel supply when you need it to."

She points to the arm guard. "That is the Omni-tool that got issued with the faceplate you are using. It's a combat model, and it comes with all the standard toys including a blade, a basic sensors package, and a computer that will hook up to the cameras on the guns to record up to three weeks worth of footage, should you end up in a position where you are being used for scouting. Frankly, the number of things these Omni-tools can do is so extensive that I really don't have time to get into it and we don't have a manual for this one in any human language. So you'll have to ask Lieutenant Kurin or Private Calia to give you the basics when they have the time. But the main reason to give you this one specifically is that it is tied into the diagnostic unit in the faceplate, so you can use it to troubleshoot or lockdown any strangeness that is happening." She smirks. "And yes, we did install an English language module on it."

Not even realizing that he was getting tense until she said that, he is a bit surprised when he lets out a breath in relief at hearing it.

She goes back to the pack and flips the unit around to show him the back, where the ammo used to be stored.

"We weren't sure if you would want to go back to your old guns at some point, so we left the old ammo containers on it and the mounting brackets will still accommodate your old guns. But until that ridiculous circumstance comes about, we went ahead and fitted these removable tabs to the ammo belt release apertures on either side to seal them up, and now they can be used for storage. Just open them up like normal and remember that if you have any significant amount of weight in them you'll want to keep it distributed pretty evenly or it'll wreck the flight characteristics of the unit. Unless you are going to be out of contact with support for a while, I'd probably just use them to store ammo blocks if it was me. Just be mindful that the ammo blocks for this style SMG weigh about a pound a piece if you are using the intended, super-dense type we supply here. So a full set of reloads is twenty pounds and will lose you quite a bit of the improvement to the weight we managed."

She smirks as she takes in his physique. "Though since that weight didn't seem to bother you much it might be worth it anyway."

She then flips the manikin around one more time so they are looking at the plate his back would rest against and he can see they have removed all the old padding and replaced it with some new stuff that has some kind of techie bump things on either side. Not where his back would be, but rather nosing out the side of the unit.

"When you get this back to Alexis, ask her to apply her 'chill metal' rune thing to the plate under this pad when she's doing it to the guns. The reason that it was so thick before was largely to protect you from the heat. So since you'll have the cooling system on you anyway, we took advantage of that and replaced the whole mess with this much thinner padding, and a thin box that sits behind it and houses a power supply for all of our additions and a shield emitter that will kick on if your personal one ever fails due to damage or malfunction. It will accept the burden until you use your Omni-tool to shut it down. Since you can't run two of these types of shields at the same time without frying both of them, they all have a built-in detector to make sure that isn't going to be a problem. So as soon as you shut down the one on the pack, the one on your suit should take over."

She looks at him directly, her expression more than a little disgusted for just a moment.

"And no, you can't have the old padding back. We disposed of it when we sorted out what it was. Why you people would still be using asbestos for anything when you're to the stage when you are fooling around with personal flight systems is beyond me. If you decide for whatever reason that you want this thing back to its original configuration, come see me and I can replace the padding they used with something that won't shred your lungs when it starts to break up from age and wear."

She stands back and motions to him. "Go ahead and try it on, tell me what you think."

Dave nods, and stepping forward he starts with the faceplate. Making a point to be looking away when he does. He can't imagine why it would be worth it to keep what he looks like a secret here, except that Mindy, or Hit-Girl if you prefer, would beat him to within an inch of his life if the little purple-loving nutbar learned that he did it.

The unit must have some kind of sensor to know when it is being used because the mat black interior lights up when he has it on and starts telling him all kinds of things he doesn't care about right now. Mostly that that fuel tank is empty. It seems really concerned about that one.

Swapping out the arm guard on his left arm isn't a problem, and it takes him less than three seconds of fiddling with it to decide that learning the workings of it is likely to be pretty fun. Less a chore than a labor of love.

Strapping on the pack after removing it from the manikin is way easier than he'd worried it might be. Mostly because it seems about thirty pounds lighter.

Of course, he's seen the empty ammo boxes and the screen in front of his face is flashing 'FUEL DEPLETED' at him in small, but still annoying text in the upper left-hand corner of his vision.

Once he has the last of the buckles done up he jumps a couple of times to let everything settle a bit and then tightens a couple of the straps. Turns to Jalayae.

"If Alexis comes through on her weightless fuel option, this will be pretty epic, actually. Feels something like thirty pounds lighter."

The engineer smirks. "thirty two point three, actually. Not as much as we hoped, but even if we had skipped the shield generator, dropped it to four guns total, and only one ammo block in each, we still could only have gotten the weight savings down to around forty-five pounds. In the end, we decided the extra thirteen pounds were worth it. Might not have been if you'd been legitimately carrying it everywhere, but since it is its own transportation that was how we went with it. In all, we dropped it from a fully-loaded weight of just under eighty pounds to what you have here, which is closer to fifty-five. Plus your armor, personal weapons, spare ammunition, and whatever I am betting that you'll be packing around a solid eighty pounds again when you are wearing it, but you'll have a lot more options and power than you did before."

She sighs and sits back at her desk.

"Unless there is something else though, I'll need to get back to work. That archaic piece of hardware was a fun distraction, but now that it's done I have bigger fish to fry."

Taking the hint for the clue it is, he collects up the rest of his stuff and starts the trek back to the truck. He'll need to ask Alex to attach the new fuel tank and scribe the runes on whatever needs it before he can get any practice in. But after that, it should be fun. He can't wait.

>>>>

>> Three hours later, at the truck.

Alexis has just gotten done putting the runes on Kick-Ass' new getup and done the mods she said she would when there is a voice that calls out from the door. A voice that she knows.

"Alexis? I have the plans we managed to put together, and we can get them completed by tomorrow. But we'll need some help from you to do it."

Alex stands and stretches her back, the popping sound a gratifying sensation after dealing with all the fiddly bits she had for the last hour. Turning to face the engineer she reaches into her ever-present satchel and after pulling out a choker she tosses it to the blue woman and walks back into the truck proper. Doing this kind of thing in the cargo area kinda sucked, but the pack is just big enough that it would have been a pain in the ass to deal with in the tiny little micro shop she has on board.

"Put that on and think small thoughts. I want to go sit somewhere comfortable for a while before my lower back goes into open revolt."

Then she walks through the tiny doorway and Jalayae holds the choker like it contains the secrets of the universe for a few moments before she hastily puts it on and does as she was told. After taking a minute to get used to the sensation of being the size of a child again, she follows the artificer in.

Alex sees her enter finally and points to the counter, where there is a teapot on the stove.

"Feel free to pour yourself a cup. I left a mug out for you. Then you can show me what you came up with that is supposed to be so cool and what you need from me to make it happen."

The Asari does so, and after a sip of the tea looks at her in shock.

"This is actually pretty good! Spicy, what is it?"

Alex smiles and nods.

"Glad you like it. It's cinnamon and orange-infused black tea called 'Market Spice.' Or at least that's what the seller I buy from calls it. It is pretty good, but you need to make sure that you don't make it too strong. You could peel paint with this stuff if you get crazy with it. That cinnamon can get a bit out there if you screw it up."

Jalayae nods. She can see that pretty easily based on how it tastes. She takes a moment to sip once again and then rolls out the blueprints on the table between them. Alex sorts it out in a microsecond and her eyebrows rise.

"You want to ratchet down a portable hole to the roof and put it in that?"

She nods. "Basically, yes. The circular cover to keep it down flat and protect the portable hole will increase the height of your truck about two inches, but we can machine it down into a four-piece assembly that you can then just put in the hole itself, lower the turret under the opening, and roll it up. The fasteners to hold it down will be recessed and you can simply screw them into the holes used for attachment if you ever want to put the unit in storage. The shield generator is under the gun and the emitters around the top armor of it. We can program in the dimensions of the vehicle without any real trouble. And we can set the whole thing up to be remotely operated by somebody inside the truck using an Omni-tool or if you want to get fancy, we can install an actual gunnery station somewhere that can be used. Honestly, the VI is pretty good, but a person at a gunnery station has more discretion. That's what I would recommend."

Alexis nods, thinking for a few minutes as she goes over the plans. She doesn't understand the tech, of course, but there are tricks to using portable holes like this and she needs to make sure that they haven't screwed up anything in that regard.

"Looks pretty good, actually. I can work with this. We can put it on the back third of the truck, beyond where the shuttle reaches."

Jalayae gives her a blank look. "Shuttle? What are you talking about?"

Laughing, Alexis explains.

"The truck doesn't really fly. It's just attached to another craft that does. Truth be told, this will be the first gun put on the truck proper, all the actual armament so far has been put on the shuttle. So this should be nice. It'll let me separate the two while we're out if I need to without being quite so nervous about things."

At her disbelieving look, Alexis smirks.

"C'mon, I'll give you the nickel tour and we can take the shuttle off for a few minutes so you can see where I want the turret."

Twenty minutes later, it is only by the strength of will given to her by the Goddess herself that she hasn't just grabbed the dark-haired human and smothered her in love in an attempt to mate with her then and there.

The idea that this already ridiculously versatile, powerful, and comfortable vehicle actually has a way to separate out into two pieces, both of which can still hover indefinitely and the 'shuttle' portion of which is a flying pillbox that can become invisible at will is astounding. But the fact that there is instantaneous travel between the two in the form of limited teleportation, something that was thought to be an impossibility, is momentous.

"I can see why you wouldn't want the gun centrally located, having it astride the line where the two pieces clamp together would be terrible. But I have to ask, why put it on the truck portion at all? Why not just beef up the offense on the shuttle portion?"

Alexis shrugs. "Partly because the truck currently has no offense aside from ramming things. Well, and its occupants. I see that there is a pair of coaxial guns on the cannon, it seems like having those on the turret could be useful for close-in protection. But also because I'm betting the maximum range on that beast of a cannon is probably measured in tens of miles or better, and having something I could use for fire support other than dropping lightning on whatever is pissing me off would be nice once in a while."

The engineer looks at her and all but moans.

"You can control lightning?"

Alexis shrugs as she is putting the shuttle back. There is a loud 'clang' sound under them as the clamps engage and the truck is pulled just slightly off to one side for a moment until Alex disengages the flight system, then it is the shuttle that is pulled back slightly by the truck.

"Sure. Weather control for combat use is something I do a lot of, actually. One of the toys I've been putting together for the last two days and plan to install on the truck tonight should be pretty useful in that regard. I'm not particularly interested in getting fried from space, so guaranteed cloud cover seemed like the way to go."

It is at that point that Alex looks around to see that Jalayae is staring at her with an awed smile and... Damn it, she wasn't lying.

Her eyes really are starting to darken.

"Hey, snap out of it!"

The Asari seems to shake herself out of a stupor and then blushes a bit when she realizes just how far her mind had gone down that path without her realizing it. Legitimately, at five hundred and twelve, she has been in her prime childbearing years for quite a while and just hasn't gotten around to it because of her career. But it seems like her biology would have its due, one way or another.

Then Alex continues, and her heart leaps in joy at the possibility.

"Willow and I discussed it, and since it would really help you all out, and it won't hurt us if you really are interested we can think about it, but you can't get the go-ahead from me. You need to talk to Willow. That's the compromise we made. Now pull yourself together, go finish this turret thing so Mileeni will get off your ass about it, and then talk to her."

Not trusting herself to speak, she just smiles from ear to ear as her heart soars, and then she exits to get her work done.

Alex sits back down in the pilot's seat and sighs. Why did things have to get so complicated?

>>>>

Author's Note:
Don't get too excited, people. I am not likely to be writing any hot and heavy sex scenes. I suppose I could, but I tend to be more the:

'and the lights dim and then the rest of the people in the neighboring houses get to hear all about her love of the goddess accompanied by frantic moaning and the poor old bed finally giving way in hour three.'

You know, that kind of thing. Hopefully, you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Datatroll]

Chapter 21
There She Was, Just A Rolling Out The Door...

>>>>

>> That evening, just after dinner.
Alexis walks into the new temporary bunkhouse, followed by the now veritable horde of heroes from three different dimensions. It is built along the lines of a stretched-out summer-camp style setup, with normal-sized bunk beds going only two high, and a central wall that separates the two halves but only to within three feet of the twelve-foot ceiling. This is because the blackout curtains on the bunks have made a reappearance, and in the exact center of the large room, where it will shed its light on both sleeping chambers, is another set of the massively powerful yellow sun lamps. The walls are made of cloth that has been stiffened with some kind of starchy glue stuff and the structure is held up by metal poles, not terribly unlike an old-style army tent. This might not have been the best plan were they out in the elements where the wind could catch it and toss it around, but that not being a concern it seems to be working just fine.

"Thank you all for stopping by. I have a few things I wanted to mention to you all and it needed to be tonight so if something bad happens, you know what's going on and don't blame the wrong people."

She stops for a few seconds, thinking. Then she continues.

"First, I want to thank you very much for all your hard work. I appreciate it more than you know. But I think this particular problem is going to take a lot longer to fix than any of us really can stay here for full time. It sucks beyond belief that they are having these problems and I am still committed to helping fix things, but I also understand that you all can't just stay here forever. So I talked with Dawn, who very graciously helped me set this up. Her contribution is the portal behind that curtain against the far wall. If we turned the lights off, you'd see the glow. That portal will take you to Beatdown and Supergirl's house back in your world. I don't think the Asari are even capable of getting rid of that portal, it would probably survive the destruction of this base, but it has a timer on it of one week, then it will dissipate. She has assured me that she will stop by and refresh it every three or four days, so at any given time it will have between three days to a week before it goes away. I asked her to do this for three reasons, though I would appreciate it if the last one stays among us."

She shuffles her feet for a moment and then looks around at them all again as she starts speaking.

"The first is that I wanted the lot of you to be able to get back and forth to your Earth without my help in case something bad happens. I can't fight Reapers. They're too big, I've just got nothing in my arsenal that can dent one. But I can deal with husks, and more importantly, my trucks complement and I can perform a search and rescue like nobody's business. My intention is to move out tomorrow when the hounds are released and keep in touch with Mutt-Xander so I can be of assistance when he needs me. The rest of the time I'll be looking for survivors and getting them back here. I built a teleport pad that goes with the ones I have on the truck, so while I have to park for a few hours so the system can align, once that happens I can shoot them back here about once every twenty seconds from wherever we happen to be. There may also be wounded, diseased, or even just people that have fallen so far to the indoctrination that they are no longer capable of helping themselves. Thanks to a suggestion from Beatdown, I can maintain my production of things for the war effort while in transit, so the only excuse not to go out was the worry that you wouldn't be able to get back if I bought it."

She jerks a thumb towards the curtain on the wall. "I went ahead and handled that."

She starts pacing a little and her irritation is easy to see.

"I also need you to know that the higher up here on Thessia have decided they can dictate my actions to some degree. They were trying to keep me locked up in this base as their last resort to get out or something, and I will have nothing to do with that. I'm a volunteer and that's the way it is going to stay. I didn't come here for them. I came here for the average citizen that is trying to keep their family alive through this. But if they get pushy enough that I fear my freedom is in danger, I might have to bail. So if you haven't seen or heard from me for a few days, just be advised that there is a reasonable chance that I've left the building, so to speak. If that's the case, my recommendation is that you get to this portal and make your way home before things go to hell and they decide the best way to keep you here fighting for them is to get rid of your way home." She sighs. "I don't think they would do that. I'm trying to be optimistic, but also not a naive fool. So just be careful."

She stops pacing and scratches her nose.

"It's also here because, in the event that things truly do go to hell? I'm hoping that between the two worlds that you represent plus my own, we can evacuate at least the population of this base and save the species that way. I think it would be better all the way around if we didn't bring that option to their attention unless it is absolutely needed, because I would rather they fought for this world than fought over a place in ours. But in order to be able to look at myself in the mirror at night, I kinda felt that the option needed to be there."

She stops and looks at the various groupings of heroes, as they tend to clump up when they are all in a room like this, with Superman standing in the center. Still looking a bit crispy, and his uniform is in relative tatters. But still alive, still willing, and thanks to a potion that Padfoot and Mooney whipped up, once again in possession of a full head of hair.

"I guess if there was a last thing I wanted to say it's that like I said before, I know you all have lives and responsibilities back home. So if you need to leave, that's cool. I will hope that you come back." She sighs. "Honestly, my hope is that the League can start some kind of rotation so we can have people here helping without just a few of you having to dedicate years to it. But I'll take what I can get, you know your people better than I do."

She stops speaking for a few seconds and clasps her hands in front of her.

"So... That's all I had, really. Does anybody have anything they want to add?"

Robin steps up, a massive grin stretched firmly across his face.

"Just that I am really glad you thought to set this up. I was going to have to leave with at least Starfire soon. The only active combat heroes we have in Jump City right now are Cyborg and Jinx, and frankly, when it's just those two they spend a lot less time listening for the alarm than they do winding each other up."

Starfire nods sadly.

"It would be for the best were they to give in to their urges and become sexually entangled. Their courtship has been going on far too long. The frustration in both of them must be unbelievable, why I bet..."

She is interrupted at this point by Robin, who shuts her mouth with a kiss.

"I think they get it, Star."

She looks at him in trepidation. "Was I sharing too much again?"

He laughs. "Maybe just a little."

Turning back to the rest, he nods. "I didn't want to abandon this, but I can't abandon my city or my team either. But with this setup, I can make it a point to be here maybe one day in three. Maybe more, if things are quiet at home."

Mooney and Tonks look at each other, and Tonks looks down.

"I think I am going to have to call it. If you need me for something specific, I'll do what I can. But I need to get back to my son." She looks up as though asking for forgiveness, and when her eyes find nothing but understanding, her mood it is easy to see has improved dramatically.

Mooney nods and puts an arm around her. "I'm actually in the same boat, but I think I can dedicate the one day in three that Robin will. I'm still willing, I'm just not about to set myself up to miss my son's entire childhood fighting a war that is likely to last another five to ten years on this planet alone."

Jon Stewart grimaces a little. "I should probably check in now that I easily can. And when I explain the situation I'm not sure if they'll let me come back or not. They know how strong Superman is, and his close call will make them really leery of leaving a lantern in another dimension like this. They'll pretty it up with talk of jurisdictions and responsibilities, but in the end, I am betting it will boil down to them not having a dog in this fight if you'll excuse the phrase."

Superman nods slowly. "I will be here as often as I can. But it would be good to get back to work, sleep in my own bed, and process a little what we've been doing here. There has to be a reason for this, nothing this technologically advanced and obviously intelligent does things without a reason. It may be an insane reason. It may be based on bad data or faulty premises. But there will be a reason, and until we figure out what that reason is all we can do is beat on the symptoms while the disease destroys the galaxy."

He sighs. "I just can't shake the feeling that this is Brainiac's slightly more demented cousin and I'll be honest here, that scares me a little. Because the Brainiac I know wouldn't stop at one dimension once it knew there were others to go to, and I don't think this disaster will either. It'll spread, and we're stuck with the choice of facing it here or waiting and facing it on our planets when they've managed to find a way across the dimensional barrier."

He looks up and his eyes are beyond tired. He appears as though he could fall over right now and into a coma, with only an iron will keeping him upright at this point.

"If you don't mind I'd like to take the information we have to Batman. I doubt he'll come here and fight, frankly this kind of open warfare style conflict is a bit out of his area of expertise anyway. But I can't think of anybody that has more experience dealing with madmen than he does or a better mind for pulling together facts and coming up with answers. Also, his distance from the problem could give him a bit more perspective. He might have some insight for us once he's seen the data."

Nobody in the room dares to argue with that statement, and Alexis nods and turns to Willow. "Can we set him up with something he can take back with him?"

Willow nods. "I've been keeping an updated, searchable, tabulated, and sorted into confirmed and speculated bank of information that I've been trying to use to get some kind of idea what the heck is going on, but if you think Batman would be a good one to take a look, I'd love to get him on board. It'll take me about twenty minutes to copy the file onto media he can use, there is something like fourteen thousand hours with of searchable video as part of it. Let me go get that started, I'll be right back."

Things are quiet for a few moments as she leaves the bunkhouse and makes her way back to the truck. Then Alex speaks up again.

"I know that you are all fast enough in one way or another that you can walk through that portal and be home in less than fifteen minutes. But I put the bunkhouse here anyway partly so that the locals wouldn't panic too much the first time my truck is out overnight, and partly because you might actually want to stay here sometime. Also, just so you know this is a second lamp. The first one is still on my truck and if you ever see me in the field and need a nap or even just a recharge, for those of you it would matter to feel free to stop by."

>>>>

Most of the people from DC leave for the night. Harry and Kara stay, as well as Xander and Raven. The rest all leave, and while there is many an assurance that they would be back in within a day or three, there is a little kernel of fear in Alex's heart that she had just allowed the deaths of an extra few million Asari. In the end though, while the Asari have a right to life it doesn't trump the rights of the people trying to help them to be able to live their own lives. That truth doesn't stop her from going to bed with a heavy heart though, praying that she has done the right thing.

>>>>

>> The next morning. Entirely too damn early. Waking up not when her alarm goes off, but rather because Xander is on the truck's PA system again.

"Wake up everybody! It's time to show these blue babes just why it is that we are feared in fourteen hell dimensions, twelve countries, eighteen states, and at least three dog parks that I know of. We are here to fight. We are not here to die. You get hurt, you get to the back of the pack until you are feeling better. I will have none of you dying over anything stupid like I said before. You will not risk your life to make a kill. You will not risk anyone else's life to make a kill. If you decide, on your own, to risk your life in the protection of another or on a rescue maneuver for one of us or one of these aliens we are here to help, that is your call, but do not feel obligated. We are here to help, not to die. Am I understood?"

The barks and howls that respond could drown out a god having a temper tantrum.

"I want the standard formation, one hundred groups of four hundred apiece. You stay with your pack. You stay close enough to sense me or the truck that Alexis is bringing out, and you do not get more than five miles from one or the other. We don't really know the situation yet on the ground, so this is going to start as a standard sweep and clear. All these damn techno zombies are going down. If you can, if they'll let you, lead any survivors you find back to me or the truck. If they won't follow you, then there isn't much you can do. Do not try to force them or pursue them, they'll have to come around on their own to understand how awesome you all are, we can't make them."

He stops for a moment as he realizes that he is drawing quite the crowd of Asari at the entrance to the hanger. He gives the few hundred ladies a grin and a wink.

"Now, you know your groupings. Get into formation and get ready to head out. Get something to eat and drink before we fall out, I don't want you eating the zombies and we don't know if there is anything else out there worth eating anyway." He glances at his shiny new Omni-tool. "You have one hour from right now, make it happen."

By now the people staying in the truck have all managed to awaken and get cleaned up for the day. After getting armored up and getting a bite to eat, Alexis makes her way to the mob of people that still haven't dissipated at the hanger door.

"If any of you are willing, I could use at least four volunteers in armor and with weapons that are willing to spend the day three feet tall and strapped into the guns on my truck. If you have other duties, I understand. I'm not trying to get anybody in trouble. Pass the word, if you could please."

Alex hops on the coms and starts the rounds. "Q here. Okay everybody, here's the deal. We may or may not have a bunch of Hellhounds following us around. Your guess is as good as mine, but my gut says that Xander will probably keep them largely away from our direct position unless we call for assistance. It's tough to do rescue operations when the people you are trying to save are running from you."

There is laughing on the line.

"Mutt-boy here. I take it you forgot you gave out the earpieces yesterday? And yeah, that sounds fine. I'll try to keep a few groups within a mile or two in case you need them, we have our own coms gear. Not as cool as yours is maybe, but I should be able to let the leads know you require assistance assuming you can get word to me. They are way fun for not being able to be jammed and stuff, but the mile range on your coms is kinda shit, honestly."

Alexis nods thoughtfully. "Q here. That's actually a good point. Can you give Willow the particulars of your sets? She can use the coms gear on the truck to keep in touch. It's a lot better for long-range stuff. Anyway, so yeah. That's a thing. Willow, As always I am going to need you running the intelligence section of this little operation as well as monitoring coms and if possible, keeping track of current hot spots by remotely accessing whatever is left of the Asari defense network. Finally, if we get in a tight spot, have you figured out the ins and outs of the new turret?"

"Red here. No worries. It's actually a pretty simple system, honestly."

There is a slight pause as Alex decides where to go next with this.

"Q again. I don't have any Wrights on the guns, because I am trying to keep production up while we are in the field. I went ahead and asked for some volunteers from the Asari, but since I didn't actually think of it until like three minutes ago, I don't know yet if we'll get any. If we do, I'll need either Slayer or Smalls or both to give them the basic rundown of how they work and to make sure the right damage types are being output. Remember, undead constructs, basically. After that, they can experiment and see what works best. Given the techno look on them, I'd guess you couldn't go wrong with electrical and acid but I couldn't say for certain. If we don't get the volunteers, I'll need the two of you on guns along with Kurin and Kudzu. If we do get volunteers, I'd like to have the slayer types as a roving point guard and one of the Asari on shuttle pilot duty with the other driving the truck. I've got homunculus waiting in cargo in case they're needed, as well as the golem I can pull out if we end up stuck somewhere for a while."

A new voice pops in on the line. "Hit-Girl here. Gotta say these headsets are kinda cute. But anyway, what do you want Kick-Ass and me to do? Oh, and Tizzy. She's mine, but if you missed her in the mob I wouldn't blame you."

Alex looks around and sure enough, that same Tasmanian Devil mutt is there. Armored now, and looking all the meaner for it with a jaw that seems to be about a quarter of her body mass.

"Q here. Tizzy? For a Tasmanian Devil? Appropriate I guess. Honestly, I hadn't really considered you two. I kind of assumed you would be with Xander for this."

"Kick-Ass here. Actually, he suggested and we kind of agreed that you'd probably need the muscle more than he did. You've seen these hellhounds when they go on a tear. It's pretty ridiculous."

Alexis frowns behind her helm.

"When did he mention this?"

There is a bit of a chuckle.

"Mutt-Boy here. About three minutes ago."

Alexis rolls her eyes. Of course. They have a radio set up that she's not on.

"Q here. Right. Gotcha. Anyway, sure. Tempted to put Hit-Girl and Tizzy on the same roving point guard that Slayer and Smalls will be and use Kick-Ass as a scout and lookout. But you know your abilities better than I do, if you think something else would be better, feel free to decide among yourselves. For now, we leave in about a half-hour. I need to go see if we have any volunteers and to let them know they may want to have a welcoming committee on this end by the teleporter in case anybody comes through."

Opening the backdoor, she finds four Asari standing there. And she knows one of them.

"Jalayae. I have to say, I didn't figure they'd let you wander off any more than they'd let me."

The Asari just smirks. "It's my day off. Besides, I'm interested to see this weapon system you cobbled together. Should be interesting." She motions behind herself. "These are three of my engineers that were interested in the same opportunity, they read the reports about what these things can do to husks the same as I did and they are understandably curious." Her voice loses some of its laughter. "In all honesty, while we probably would have come anyway for the reasons I just gave the truth is that the Matriarch asked us if we could come along."

At Alexis' look, she shakes her head. "Not ordered, asked. She's concerned that you might need engineers that know the local tech and construction techniques while navigating the area, particularly if you need to try to pull anybody out of a building that has seen better days. There will be a few medics showing up soon too. Your mysticism is amazing, but she is hoping that they can help any wounded actually get to you before they get killed being dragged out of bad situations with spinal injuries or the like."

Alex raises an eyebrow. "And she'd like to keep an eye on me."

Jalayae just shrugs. "She didn't actually say that, but I sort of figured it was implied. Honestly, she'd be a fool not to. Whether you believe it or not you are an amazing asset, a willing asset, and one that if she had the authority, no. She wouldn't let you off the base. But she doesn't. So she's just trying to keep you as safe as possible. Both for what you can do for us in the future, and in thanks for what you've already done. Is that really so terrible?"

Sighing in a combination of acceptance and frustration, Alex shakes her head. "No. No, it isn't, as long as that is as far as it goes. But anyway, let's get you four hooked up with your chokers and on the guns." She smirks. "Unless you'd rather have the tattoos. I have some spares now, and I could see myself clear to hook up some people willing to go out there with me."

Jalayae grins. "I'm in."

Three more agreements later and all four of them are wearing the sizing mark, the protection scheme, the feather fall enchantment, and the three in one see the invisible, see in magical darkness, and darkvision tattoos. She'd thought about the protection from scrying that everybody she believes is going back to her dimension is wearing, but frankly, those are really expensive and there's no evidence anyone here is using magical scrying.

Once she has them sorted, she turns back to Jalayae again.

"Hey, I was going to track down somebody with rank, but since you're here I was wondering if you could let somebody that matters know that we might be sending some civilians back here with the teleporter." She points off to the side where the two-foot-wide and foot-thick metal disc covered in deeply etched runes all around its circumference sits a few feet from the wall. The only thing that would indicate that it isn't actually just a ridiculously thick misplaced sewer cover is the cord leading off of it to a small keypad and a screen on a three-and-a-half-foot stand.

Jalayae shakes her head and giggles while the other three engineers look at her in disbelief.

"Yes, I can certainly do that. Thanks for letting us know what you were planning though. With as paranoid as people are getting of this Reaper mind control thing, random people showing up in base without any warning would probably get shot."

Then she accesses her Omni-tool and a few minutes later a pair of soldiers that are wearing slightly different uniforms Alexis suspects are the local equivalent of military police show up. After hearing the rest of the explanation they skeptically, but without complaint, make their way over to the pad to stand guard near it. It's about that time when the four medics show up, and Alexis lets out a sigh of minor annoyance. She recognizes them from the time working in the infirmary.

They were some of the biggest contenders for the 'creeping her shit' award for the year, between the giggling and random speculation about her compatibility.

Finally, Xander hops back on the PA system again and calls out. "Ten minutes! Ten minutes until we show these motherfuckers who runs the show around here! Fall in my lovelies, for the hunt is about to begin!"

Getting the medics sorted out with their chokers is pretty quick, and then there is the scramble to get the engineers set up on the guns with the quick explanations of how it all works. In the end, Calia takes the road wheels and Kurin the pilot's seat while Alexis releases her scout homunculus, Skite, and sits in the passenger side of the cab, buckled in. Skite, while a horrible combatant, is small, flies fairly damn fast, has good senses for poking around where it ought not to be, and finally, the most important thing currently, can pass on messages in Alex's own voice. Between that and her instant communication with any of her homunculus that stretches out now to seventeen miles, it means that she can establish communication with any local forces that aren't using the same communications equipment, or simply don't have any of their own.

Talking Calia through how to drive what to her is an archaic device isn't as easy as she might have liked, but she manages to get enough of the idea to be moving when the hounds move out.

Once again, she is going to see the sun for the first time in a while. But this time isn't likely to be nearly as pleasant.