Rain. Why was it that whenever a major event in his life took place there was inevitably rain? It had rained the night he lost his soul, the night that Conner had been born, the night of his epiphany. Rain seemed a defining aspect of his life. It felt appropriate that the night he was going to die it would be raining. Also the fact that he was in an alley felt rather appropriate. Turned in an alley, Conner born in an alley, lost his soul in an alley. Rain and alleys. Somehow it seemed prophetic. He was also convinced that if the thousands of demons racing towards them didn't kill them horribly they may very well drown.
He had never seen demons like this. They were like those orc things from Lord of the Rings, except they were unfortunately real. They came in every shape and size and colour. They carried every possible form of weapon but didn't seem to be well armoured. Luckily they seemed to be relatively easy to kill – sword, chest or neck, death. It was a pretty much a major hack and slash fest. He'd picked up a second sword, still clutched in the hand of a dead demon. Wielding both swords he wasn't really interested in the finesse of fighting, he just wanted to cause as much damage as possible. It didn't matter if he killed them, as long as they were out of the fight. Limbs were detached from torsos, heads were cleaved, stomachs slashed. The bodies piled up and Angel moved through the swarms like the killing machine that he had been a hundred years ago. His fury at all he and his friends had had to endure at the hands of Wolfram and Hart, the pain of their loss, the anger at the Slayers' Council for being unwilling to listen, his self hatred – all of it was focused on to the blade of the weapons he wielded. Anything in his way was destroyed. He felt Hamilton's blood pump through his veins and it forced Angelus to rattle his cage, adding extra strength to his fight.
He looked around.
Spike was having the time of his unlife. This was the fight he had always dreamed of – this was how he wanted to go out. He ripped heads off with his bare hands, hacked limbs off with a battle axe that he had acquired and was a miniature whirlwind of death. William the Bloody was back, and better than ever. It caused Angel to chuckle as he ripped through the demons. He had created that killing machine. Dru may have killed William but Angelus had created him. At least he had done something right for once. Angelus and William the Bloody, together again and raining hell on something that had the nerve to believe that it was bigger and badder than they were. The battle axe was exchanged for a sword and what looked to be a length of chain. He whipped the chain around, baiting the demons. His duster, tattered as it was swirled with every movement and Spike looked like a matador enraging the bulls. He was the embodiment of life, even amongst all that death and carnage.
Illyria was the same. The force of the blows that she landed caved chest cavities and forced skulls to implode. Her grief, as foreign as it was to her, was driving her to cause mass destruction. Only the larger demons were willing to take her on, they were arrogant enough to see her as just a girl and they fell at her feet. She was just a blue blur surrounded by the dying and the dead. If they got out of this, Angel would never doubt the ex-godking's power again. Although he doubted that he would be telling her how grateful he was. She had enough of an ego as it was. He had never met anyone quite that arrogant, but he found that he was comforted by it. Illyria without her arrogance was like Spike without the radio active hair or the duster – unimaginable. Only difference was that her arrogance served her well. Angel failed to see how Spike's hair served him.
Gunn was no where to be seen. They had been fighting for over half an hour so if Illyria had been correct he had been dead for at least 20 minutes. Fifth soldier down. Fifth and bravest of them all.
Dimly Angel could hear the dragon circling but there was nothing he could do about it. It was quite useful as the fire that it was throwing took out anything in its path. It didn't seem to care that it was killing members of its own team. In fact there was quite a bit of infighting going on. Every so often the creatures would turn on each other, obviously they were from rival clans and there instructions had not included co-operation. Just kill. They seemed to have no problem in killing each other, but they were having a hard time taking Angel's team out. The three of them dealt out death as casually as a hand of cards. This was their game and all the bets were in.
Spike was howling like a banshee. Angel wished that he could have enjoyed the fight as much as Spike seemed to. Even Illyria wasn't taking that much pleasure from the killings. She was just making her way through the demons with no passion for anything, just an unquenchable and unwanted blood thirst.
The dragon made another pass and incinerated 30 demons to the left of Angel. Just a few ashes and the odd bit of bone were left of them. That meant that the demon had taken out at least one tenth of the army sent at them. He watched as it grabbed a troll in its talons and ripped it in half. He couldn't help but think that it would make a great pet. No unwanted visitors when that thing was around. He might send it after Rupert Giles… that was a fun image. He saw another group of demons go up in flames. He couldn't help but feel that this might actually go their way. The dragon was doing a good job. As soon as he'd thought that though, an almighty scream cleaved the air.
Angel whipped round just in time to see a sword pierce Illyria's abdomen.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing. The all powerful god-king was slowly split in two as the sword ripped through her. He had assumed that she would be the one to survive this out of all of them. He could see Spike running towards her, screaming her name and Angel could make out the tears in his eyes. Angel couldn't move. He was too far away and too shocked to do anything about it. As the sword hewed her in two a bright blue light built up and exploded from her body. It swept through the armies and everything that it touched disintegrated into nothing.
Spike was engulfed and barely had time to react before he was gone. Angel hadn't even had the chance to warn him. He knew the expression on Spike's face would haunt him for the rest of his life. All 3 seconds of it.
As the shockwave approached Angel had seconds to think of his friends. In his minds eye he ran through each of the most important people in his life. The faces of Spike and Conner were the last thing he saw as the wave hit and he felt his body get ripped apart.