Title: The Mirror Cracks
Author: S J Smith
Rating: K+
Summary: When Wolfram and Hart's final battle begins - there are a few strangers who wind up involved, too.
Disclaimer: I seriously make no money in regard to this.
Thunder rolled through the city streets, loud enough to shake the buildings. The rain fell in thick sheets, blinding and deafening those stupid enough to be out in the storm. The sky overhead light up with lightning just long enough to pinpoint something that never should've been hanging on the currents of the city – a dragon, mouth open in a roar that rivaled the thunder.
Angel freshened his grip on his sword, blinking hard to clear his lashes of the rain. The dragon flapped its wings, snaky neck twisting as it surveyed its prey below. "Come on, come on," Angel muttered. Beside him, he could make out Illyria's blue form and beyond her, Spike. Gunn staggered forward, and despite the rain, Angel could smell his blood. The demon inside him raged for a taste of it, and Angel consoled it with the reminder that there'd be plenty of blood spilled in this fight, not to mention what he'd already taken from Hamilton, just a little while before.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating the alleyway behind the Hyperion. Angel could just make out the sounds of an approaching crowd over the thunder crashing overhead. The dragon hovered, focusing on them. The crowd appeared – a horde of demons, more than even he'd expected, considering who they were fighting.
The bell-like tone made Angel clap his free hand to his ear, hunching his shoulders against the sound. The demons in front of him wailed and clutched at their heads as something burst through that wall of noise, something with more legs than anything normal for Earth, and a head even bigger than the dragon stooping out of the sky.
"What the hell?" Gunn asked, coughing, and Spike grabbed him to hold him upright.
The dragon screamed, backwinging away from that snapping, massive head. Angel thought he could make out three figures below the newest demon, figures that appeared human. The demon lashed its tail in the alleyway and part of the demon horde went flying, crashing into the building walls and bouncing off.
"Envy!" someone shouted.
The demon rolled its eye – eyes? What were its pupils, faces? – down, and it snapped its flat teeth at the trio under its belly. "This isn't Amestris," it roared. "Where did you bring us?"
"How the hell should I know? The transmutation should've taken us somewhere else!"
Whipping its tail again, the demon knocked over another collection of attackers. It raised its head, looking around. "You didn't bring us where you said you would, pipsqueak!"
"Ed, where the hell are we?"
"Are they human?" Spike asked, curling his lip.
"They are," Illyria said, "except for the demon. It is different. It feels like souls," she tilted her head, " thousands and thousands of souls."
"Is that good or b - " Gunn broke off in a round of coughing.
"Get Gunn back out of the way," Angel snarled.
"Hold on, now," Spike growled. "You don't get to just boss me around, Angel." He drawled out the last two syllables of that sentence.
Another flare of blue light, without the overwhelming melodic chime, and Angel felt a prickling on the back of his neck. Without even needing to turn, he knew ishe/i was there; could tell by the way Spike stiffened, he felt her, too. "Slayer," Spike mouthed, and started to look.
Gunn coughed, "Eyes front," as the huge demon twisted its body, roaring its rage to the sky. Its hair – mane – plastered against its head and neck, it turned, its eyes rolling.
"Ew, what is that thing?" Buffy asked, stepping up between the two vampires.
"Don't know, luv," Spike said. "But it wants to play."
"At its heart, it has multiple souls," Illyria said. "It is very dangerous."
"More dangerous than we are?" Buffy gave her a look, twirling her weird red scythe in her hands. She jerked her head back behind them. "I brought some back up. I heard there was something big going down in L.A." Narrowing her eyes, Buffy looked hard at Angel. "Funny thing is, I heard you were on the wrong side."
"You heard what someone wanted you to hear," Angel said tightly.
Gunn coughed again, waving his hand at the tableau in front of them. "Bad," he said, "guys."
"Possible civilians," Spike said, jerking his chin at the trio still under the huge demon's belly. Two of them were crouched over the third.
"Or bad guys," Buffy said, considering the demon and at least one of the people under its belly were arguing. The demon lashed its tail again, knocking aside another batch of the horde.
"I don't know, looks like the big, green, lizard dog-thing is helping us right now," Spike said slowly. "I'm for it taking out at least some of our enemies."
"Could you keep from stepping on us, Envy!" one of the people under it shouted, brandishing a fist. "Al! Al, listen to me! We'll get you somewhere safe! Just hang on!" Two of them picked up the third, running out from the shadow of the monster's belly, heading directly for them.
Angel swung his sword into a defensive position, taking a step forward.
"Hey! Put that thing down!" The blond hair stuck to the boy's face from the rain did nothing to obscure his rage. "We're unarmed!"
"And hurt!" the kind of Asian-looking kid shouted, his hands nearly slipping on the naked body of the third one.
A tiny black and white creature raced after them, squeaking and squealing, its little sharp teeth bared and tiny tail pressed close to its hindquarters as it ran. It launched itself at Buffy, nearly getting knocked aside, but Buffy pulled her blow at the last second and the little thing landed on her shoulder, huddling in her hair and trembling. "Get your wounded back!" Buffy shouted, pointing to what was left of the chain link fence that had barricaded the alleyway. "That means you, too," she pointed at Gunn.
"'m fine," Gunn insisted, blood coating his lips.
"We've got it, big guy," Buffy said, giving him a generous smile, and waved her scythe over her head. The black and white creature squealed, mimicking her actions, then leaped off her shoulder, disappearing in the rain.
Slayers poured through the fence, armed to the teeth. A few of them turned baleful gazes at Angel, who glared back. A familiar voice came behind him, and someone slapped his shoulder. "Remember," Willow shouted over the rain and thunder, "these two vampires are good guys! No fighting them. Absolutely no staking them! I've marked them with magic - "
"The hell, Red?" Spike yelped when she slapped him, too.
" – and hurting them hurts us!" Willow stopped for a second, spotting Illyria. "Oh. Are you…on our side?" She squinted, peering closer. "Fred?"
"No," she said. "God King Illyria. And your Slayers will not harm me." Without saying anything else, she stode toward the demon horde.
"Yeah. Uh." Willow raised her voice in a shout again. "Don't kill the blue woman!"
"Got it," a few of the Slayers said, in various degrees of enthusiasm for the idea.
"Buffy, not that I'm not happy you're here," Angel said, "but when I called Giles and asked for help," he shrugged, trying to keep from sounding frustrated.
Her mouth tightened, but before she could get anything out, the six-legged demon stomped its feet, making the buildings around it shudder. "Alchemist!" it snarled, "Where did you go?"
"Later," Buffy said, distracted by the threat, and started off after the Slayers.
"Hell of a time for them to show up, eh, Angel?" Spike asked, and Angel hoped he wasn't staring at Buffy's ass.
"Yeah." Angel hefted his sword, not about to let a bunch of Slayers take all the glory, and waded into the battleground.
"Brother, I'm," Alphonse said, "okay," and Edward might've believed it, but Al was shivering and soaking wet, and nothing but skin stretched over bones and eyes, way too big for his face. "Someone should look at your arm." Skeletal fingers reached out and landed on Edward's splinted wrist.
Edward shook his head. "Not leaving you," he said past the lump in his throat. How had his little brother survived, anyway? Had he actually been feeding Alphonse through that link he thought they had? If that was true, he hadn't been eating nearly enough.
"Ling needs help," Alphonse paused to take a breath, "too."
"Yes, I do," Ling grumbled, his arms folded across his ribcage. Pain tightened the skin around his eyes and mouth. "It hurts to move."
"Good thing you don't have to yet, then." The voice was cheerful, far more cheerful than anyone should be in this kind of situation, Edward thought. He couldn't understand it – one second, they were trapped inside Gluttony, the next, his transmutation threw them out into an alleyway with a bunch of – things. Horned things and things with claws and things that made Envy's real form look almost homey. A red-haired woman squatted next to Alphonse, offering all of them a smile. "I mean, the battle's going on outside, but I've put up a shield…if it's not human, it can't get inside."
Mei's weird little cat squeaked at that, drawing the redhead's attention. "Oh," she said, her eyebrows flying up, "and maybe…um, pets?"
"It's a miniature panda," Ling said.
"Really?" The redhead shook her head, turning her attention back to Alphonse. "Now, um, you." She got a good look at him, her eyes widening, then she got herself under control again. "Whoa. I mean, I'm sorry, I've never seen someone…" She shook her head, plastering a smile on her face. "Let me start again. I'm Willow Rosenberg. You need clothes and food."
"And my brother's arm is bro," Alphonse sighed, "ken, and Ling's ribs."
"Okay, we'll get a look at you guys, too," Willow said, turning a smile at Ling and Edward. Her expression changed again as she caught sight of his automail hand. "Whoa."
Edward flexed his fingers, noticing how sticky the movement was. He'd need a shower and a good oiling to clean up, but that could wait until he found out what was going to happen to Alphonse. "How soon can a doctor see Al?"
Mouth turning down, Willow said, "Well, we don't really have doctors here. Healers, yeah, but." She spread her hands. "Right now, it's me, and then we'll see. I don't even know if an ambulance will come into a war zone."
"Brother." Alphonse's voice kept Edward from lunging up at Willow's information. Still, why the hell would anyone go into a battle without some sort of medical back up? Healers? What did Willow mean by that? The metallic rattling let Edward know he was shaking, and he tried hard to clamp down on his emotions. Taking a deep breath, he tucked his aching arm against his stomach as Alphonse said, "It's okay, Willow. I'll be," his eyes fluttered closed.
"Al!" Edward reached out, grabbing for him.
Willow warded off his hand. "I think he's just sleeping," she said softly. "See?" She pointed to Alphonse's stomach. "He's breathing."
"She's right, Ed," Ling said. "Al probably needs the rest." Wincing, he leaned back against the wall. "Oh…Ran Fan will be so disappointed in me."
Edward made sure for himself that Alphonse was still breathing, his own heart finally falling back into its normal rhythm. Letting out a breath of his own, he slumped over, squeezing his eyes shut. His arm throbbed and every muscle on his body ached from the battle they'd been in with Envy before he'd figured the way out of Gluttony's stomach. He wanted to collapse, knew he could, except for Al. Edward wouldn't sleep until he knew someone was going to look at his brother. Gritting his teeth, he thought back to this morning – had it only been morning? – when they'd said goodbye to Winry. She'd told them not to die – Edward wasn't going to be the one to tell her that something bad happened to Alphonse.
"We'll be okay," he muttered. Taking Alphonse's cold fingers, he ignored the flash of pain in his broken arm. "I made a promise, right? I'm going to keep it, too." Because back home, there were people waiting for them, to see their smiles.
Notes: Thanks to D. M. Evans for her help with this. Also, this is a prequel to my story, "The Mirror Shatters", which is fully based in the FMA world.