Buffyverse recap 24th 'Giles returns'

Clearly, I was right to leave the Slayers when I did. I knew I’d only be standing in their way as they grew to legendary powers. I was worried that they’d be unable to make the tough calls, but now I wonder if they are not too ruthless, even for this Vampire war…
The slayers knew not to bother with investigating the Sacramento tv station, and <probably> avoided a minor encounter there, but flew straight to where I sent the signal for them in the tv station in New York. With Kenneday leading the way, she sweet talked her way into one of the guards immediately drawing his pistol with a final warning to turn back! Falling back to ‘plan b’, the Slayers attacked the 4 guards (8th Human) in a brutal, but measured and non lethal barrage of attacks, dropping all four in a single round, before any of them could call for back-up and police.
The party then made their way to my friend, Lori Matsukawa’s office. My plan was a cheerful reunion here, Slayers and their old Watcher Giles, but dreaded and powerful Mind Flayers found me first! They were after the Slayers also because of their “Illuminated Ones Prophesy”, so they captured me and used me as bait for the Slayers… Easily seeing through even my magical ‘hat of disguise’ in my bound state, Blade recognized me and had a way around the Mind Flayer's vile trap, as he was able to imbue myself and everyone with magical flight! I’ll bet the Slayers avoided some nasty surprises…
Good thing, as they were tough enough when they finally caught up to us. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help this battle as they ambushed us just as we were about to infiltrate an Army base… I shared with the Slayers what I learned about the Vampire’s ‘Great Harvest’ plans… The Undead have largely been migrating to the East Coast of the US from all over the world, flooding New York city primarily, with probably 1 million Vampires making the trip in that city alone. Gave me a little chill how quickly Blade assessed the situation and concluded we needed to steal a nuke and detonate in NYC! And Ember added, “well, they nuked us first…”
But before that happened, a noble dressed Mind Flayer, flanked by a Floating Brain 20’ up, and 2 hulking and even more grotesque looking Mind Flayer brutes. They had tracked us down from a homing beacon none of us thought to check me for… and their ambush round quickly captured me and knocked me out. Argot faired much better, but the 50’ tentacles of the monstrosities cut deep on him too and pulled him in, grabbing tight. Kenneday showed race car skills as she quickly reversed the car with her & Ember to help out Argot and me, and was rewarded with many severe tentacle wounds (70+ damage in 1 rnd!) Ember would have been in trouble as well, if not for her magic teleporting her away, behind the car. The Mind Flayer noble too could force several Slayers to attack each other! As the Slayers hit with powerful attacks, this made for a dangerous foe indeed! Many deep Slayer wounds were by Slayer hands controlled by foul mind magics.
Blade, who was the furthest away from the ambush, flew in fast and hard, attacking the Floating Brain, harassing it from using it’s most powerful attacks, and chasing it’s squishy flesh all through the air. A tough and bloody battle later, we won, killing all of the Illithids, when curious why they surfaced to attack, we patched up our injuries and with their tracking beacon they hid on me, waited for them to send more, which they did…
The new Mind Flayer emissaries used telepathy instead of mind blasts for parley, and bid the Slayers, whom they called “the Illuminated Ones”, to the Underdark with them. The Mind Flayers then cast powerful Plane Shift magics to transport us all to a temple with many hieroglyphs which they took many pictures of. Apparently, even they have Prophesy regarding the Slayers and are eager to help.
Stealing a nuke was much easier with the grotesque & evil Mind Flayers, as Blade was unable to scout as he hoped because of high end drones patrolling the base. He was still able to guide right where to plane shift in the Slayers to steal the nuclear missile from the Vampire technicians, Iron Golems and other monsters. This could have been a much bloodier battle, but the mission was to grab and go, so closing the portal quickly behind them leaving immediately, they were able to evade pursuit.
Unable to program the missile, and with it’s computer on auto shutdown, the Slayers bargained for a future favor to Mr Gold, if he could program the missile and fire it into the heart of New York city, which he was barely able to do in time… and a third nuclear device detonated in two major US cities in a couple weeks. Both Los Diables and New York city lie under nuclear rubble.
Unlike the first bomb, however, which was uniformly dismissed as an Earthquake by media, many varied reports of what happened flooded the airwaves & internet over what actually happened. It wasn’t too long after that though, that the media are all showing the Slayers at the Army base, the warehouse fight & missile theft, as well as older still famous footage of the ‘Casino Massacre’, with an all out global media alert from Interpol to be on the lookout for the NY terrorists… They made a tough call, struck a powerful blow to the Vampire world, but I fear will soon pay the price for it, as the whole world now thinks they are global terrorists. And I should know something about that...

Giles, 'Watcher' to the Slayers.