Title: Dimicatio
Author: alliterator
Summary: A fight, struggle, battle. Post-"Chosen."
Author's Note: I wanted to do a holiday story, but I couldn't find any inspiration or ideas. Finally, an idea came to me for a Hanukkah story, but it ended up going an entirely different direction. This is it.
Thanks to Mary Keenan for the lyrics.
"Willow, where's that spell?" Buffy shouted over the dim and racket of a hundred demons rampaging outside. She and Faith held onto a wooden door that seemed able to fall apart at anytime and was the only thing that was preventing the demons from coming inside and slaughtering them all.
"I have it, I have it," Willow shouted, her hands dirty with mud. She lifted the globs of mud into the air and chanted, "Hecate adiudico portus." Suddenly, waves of mystical energy emanated from her hands and the air seemed like it was being burned. The wave dissipated and the sounds of the demons pounding on the door stopped.
"That was close," Faith said as she removed her hands from the door, which was no longer shaking.
"What I want to know," Xander said, "is where in hell are we?"
"Hell is correct," Giles said examining an hourglass shaped wooden object on the floor.
"That thing," Dawn said pointing to the object, "transported us to a demon dimension?"
"Yes," Giles explained. "So far as I can tell, the demon we killed was trying to bring his brethren into our world." He looked at the dead demon body on the ground. "Unfortunately for him, he mixed up the runes and ended up bringing us into his world."
"Great," Buffy said sarcastically. "So we're stuck in a demon dimension."
"I never said stuck," Giles said.
"There's a way to get out?" Dawn asked excitedly.
"Well," Giles said, "our dead demon friend also didn't realize that the spell is temporary. It only lasts about six hours. If we just stay here, in six hours the spell will reverse and we'll be back on Earth."
"There may be a problem with that," Willow said. "The haven spell I did, it's, um, only supposed to last about four hours."
"We can survive two hours without the barrier, right?" Buffy asked. "I mean, we've faced worse odds. Well, not exactly worse and not for two hours, but we can survive, right?"
"Sure we can, Buffy," Xander said. "We'll make it. I just wish we had some of the other Slayers with us."
"You'll have to make due with just us," Faith said with a sly smile.
"Does anyone know what time it is?" Dawn said.
"According to my watch," Xander said, "it's 88:88."
Buffy looked at his watch. "Of course it is. And you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's blinking eights." Xander smiled and Buffy smiled back.
"It's 2:40," Giles said. He was holding a pocket watch. "That means the spell will reverse at 8:40, but we have to be ready at 6:40."
"Well," Buffy said, "at least we'll have time to prepare."
At 3:40 Dawn asked, "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to reinforce this door," Xander said. "It's a good thing this happened in an abandoned building with all this wood lying around."
"Do you think it will hold?"
"Let's hope it will."
At 4:40 Buffy had managed to fashion stakes out of some pieces of wood. "How's this?" she asked holding them up.
"That's fine," Faith said, "if you want to prick them. Now this…" She held up a metal pole she had found. "…is the weapon I'm using."
Buffy started laughing and Faith joined in. Pretty soon, Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Giles were laughing, too. They didn't know what they were laughing at, but they knew they had to laugh, had to find something funny in such a dire circumstance.
At 5:40 Xander found Willow chanting over some pebbles she had found.
"Whatcha doing?" he asked.
"I'm trying to curse them," Willow explained.
"Curse them? How?"
"Well," she said, "I'm trying to make it so anything they hit will be shunted off into another dimension, only I'm also trying to make it so I can hold and throw them. It's a bit difficult when I only a vague memory of the spell and none of the ingredients with me."
"Well, I know you can do it." Xander smiled at her and Willow nervously smiled back.
At 6:40 Giles said, "It's time."
Buffy and the gang were lined up in front of the door. Buffy held her stake and Faith held the metal pole, while Willow clutched onto the pebbles she had cursed. Xander was holding a hammer and Dawn was holding the only knife they had, a box knife that was left behind when the house was abandoned.
They waited for the haven spell to end. Five minutes passed and then five more. Finally, Xander said, "What happened?"
"I'm guessing the haven spell didn't go out?" Giles said.
"I guess," Willow said, "that somehow the spell lasts longer here than in our dimension."
"Well, thank god for some favors," Faith said.
"It appears we have a temporary reprieve," Giles said. "We'd better make the best of it, but we aware that the spell could go out at any time. Hopefully it will go out after the teleportation spell reverses and we can skip any fighting."
At 7:40 Xander asked, "What're you doing?" to Faith. She was standing in front of the door with the metal pole gripped tightly in her hands.
"What's it look like?" Faith asked rhetorically. "I'm guarding the door."
"Willow said if the haven spell went out we would all hear it," Xander said, "so there's no need to guard the door."
"Someone has to stop the demons from coming in."
"That's what the reinforcements are for," Xander said. "And if the reinforcements don't hold then we'll fight them with everything we've got."
"And if that's not enough?" Faith said.
"It will be," Xander said.
At 8:34 the haven spell went out. There was a noise like a loud cricket chirping and Willow sprang up from where she was sitting. The rest of the gang follow suit and waited for the demons to come. No one said a word and for a second everything was still and quiet, like the eye of a hurricane. And then, in one big rush, the demons came.
The reinforcements of the door held for about two seconds and then shattered into a million pieces. The demons were of a reptilian nature; large eyes and forked tongues and tails tipped with deadly spines. The first demon to enter was impaled by Faith's metal pole and as she yanked it out of the demon, more demons charged.
Buffy killed a few with her makeshift stakes and Xander managed to not die or sustain any harm while smashing his hammer into their faces. Willow tossed a pebble at demon and suddenly it wasn't there anymore, only smoke and a faint stench of burnt rubber. Willow dispatched a few more demons that way, until a demon managed to get behind her and she dropped all the pebbles when it grabbed her.
"Duck!" Willow dipped her head and Faith skewered the demon's head with her pole, but the pebbles were still rolling everywhere.
"Dawn, move!" Willow shouted as a pebble veered towards Dawn. Dawn got out of the pebble's way and it struck a charging demon, who instantly vanished.
Their efforts barely slowed down the throng of demons that flooded into the building. Dawn valiantly stabbed her box-cutter into a demon's forehead, but was wounded when one of its claws sliced her shoulder.
"Dawn!" Buffy shouted. She was preoccupied trying to kill two of the demons and couldn't get to Dawn, who held her bleeding shoulder and tried to stand up. Giles came to her side and managed to bandage her shoulder with his coat.
Meanwhile, Willow was weaponless and surrounded by three demons. "Faith!" she yelled. "Throw the pole over here!" Faith managed to hear her and tossed the pole. Willow chanted, "Derigo telum!" The pole, guided by her spell, went through all three demons.
Giles looked at his watch. "We've only got a few more seconds until the spell reverses," he said to Dawn.
"I don't know if we can survive a few more seconds," she said as she watched the battle unfold.
"We can make it," Giles said, his voice and expression betraying the uncertainty that he felt.
Suddenly, there was a sound like a loud humming. Giles and Dawn turned to look at the wooden hourglass on the floor, which was now glowing faintly. "Guess my calculations for a bit off," Giles said.
"Everyone, retreat!" Dawn yelled. "Get to the center of the room!" The gang managed to disengage from their fights and get back to where Giles and Dawn were. They had only sustained minor cuts and bruises and looked extremely happy to see the hourglass glowing.
"We're going home," Buffy said. The hourglass grew brighter and brighter, emanating yellow light that engulfed everything. Dawn closed her eyes and let the light wash over her. She had a faint feeling of what it was like to be light and then it vanished as the light dimmed. She opened her eyes and saw that there were no more demons. In fact, there was no more building.
"I guess the spell half-reserved itself," Giles said as he stepped from the remains of the building straight to the concrete foundation.
"Gee, thanks for that explanation," Faith said.
"Um, can someone get me to a hospital?" Dawn asked. Buffy caught her as she fell. "Thanks."
"No problem," Buffy said. They started walking up the street. "How do you think the Chicago police are going to explain a whole building missing except for one little oasis?" Dawn smiled and Buffy did too.
Dashboard Confessional
The Brilliant Dance
So this is odd,
the painful realization that has all gone wrong.
And nobody cares at all,
and nobody cares at all.
So you buried all your lover's clothes
and burned the letters lover wrote,
but it doesn't make it any better.
Does it make it any better?
And the plaster dented from your fist
in the hall where you had your first kiss
reminds you that the memories will fade.
So this is strange,
our sidestepping has come to be a brilliant dance
where nobody leads at all,
where nobody leads at all.
And the picture frames are facing down
and the ringing from this empty sound
is deafening and keeping you from sleep.
And breathing is a foreign task
and thinking's just too much to ask
and you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's
blinking eights.
This is incredible.
Starving, insatiable,
yes, this is love for the first time.
Well you'd like to think that you were invincible.
Yeah, well weren't we all once before we felt loss for
the first time?
Well this is the last time.