"Run!" Xander called out to Faith and Amy as he moved. He surged to his feet, sticking his arms straight out from his sides. Moving as fast as he could, Xander clothes-lined both of the men, hitting them so hard that their bodies went horizontal in the air before crashing to the ground.
Faith didn't know what was happening; her ears rang from the bang while the flash had dazzled her eyes. She felt more than heard Xander say something as he pushed her off himself and started to move. She also knew that Amy was across the room somewhere and hoped the girl would run, but she dreaded that the girl was also blinded as well.
A figure bent down over Faith. While her eyes teared and her ears rang, she relied on the only sense she had left - her sense of smell. Although the figure smelled familiar, the barn was drowning her in its smells and she couldn't really make out who it was, so she reacted, and stuck out. The blow was a good one, catching the figure that bent over her and sending it flying.
Just as her fist made contact with the figure, a voice broke through the ringing in her ears.
A voice that was soothing, calming.
Xander's voice.
Blinking her eyes, she could just make out the form of her best friend where he lay on the floor.
"Oops," Faith said, looking around as the three assassins started to move again.
Buffy was still perturbed.
Maybe she was even miffed with Willow.
Willow was apologetic. She hadn't meant to hit Buffy in the face. She hadn't meant to hit her at all. She just wanted to get the offending piece of silk away from her.
"I am sooo sorry, Buffy." Willow said again.
"I am not talking to you," Buffy replied looking away from the red headed witch.
"But -" Willow started. "I didn't -"
"Mean it," Buffy completed for her.
Buffy looked at her friend. She would make Willow suffer for a while, then forgive her. What else could she do?
The duo searched the house, but neither found a thing.
Oh, they found little things like pictures and notes. And, of course, bills.
But nothing about where Xander was or when he would be getting home.
Willow checked on the officer once in a while. The last time she checked on him, Willow found that the officer was trying to get away, so she cast a sleep spell on him, to keep him for getting into any trouble.
In the meantime, Buffy had noticed in one of the pictures of the backyard there was a workshop out there, and after deciding that they wouldn't find anything in the house, it would be the next place to look.
The shop was small. It sat in the yard along the back fence, a limb from an oak tree in a neighboring yard hanging over the roof. Buffy moved into the shop slowly.
Inside was not what she expected; as she had walked to the shop, she had thought it would be a jumble of yard tools and boxes, but instead, it was neat and orderly, although there were a lot of open boxes and even a section of wall that had been pulled out.
Walking into the room, she could smell something in the air - a taint. It was a odor she had smelled a lot of the years, one it had taken her a year to find a perfume to cover.
It was the smell of oil, the oil that you used to protect metal. It was a one-of-a-kind smell. Giles had made it special for his weapons, mixing a little of this and a little of that, to help with the Slaying as well as preserve the metal.
The oil gave off a distinctive smell, which meant that Xander has kept bladed weapons in here. And from the smell a lot of them.
Looking through the boxes, she could mentally make out what kind of weapons they were. Just a few didn't fit any weapon she knew. And one had the distinctive smell of gun power.
"He's got guns?" Buffy whispered to herself as she moved onto the next box, opening it while thinking about her friend.
Now Buffy had seen a lot in her life, but things still surprised her from time to time, and when that happened, she still reacted the same way. She screamed.
Willow was there before she stopped screaming.
"What?" she asked her friend.
"Hand," Buffy said, pointing at the box.
Willow looked into the box, and jerked back.
"That's not Xander's," Willow said with a shake of her head.
"You sure?" Buffy asked
"What?" Willow asked looking at her friend. This could be Xander's. She wouldn't let it be.
"Well," Buffy began, "Faith is here... "
"Buffy," Willow said despairingly. While Willow never really got along with the Boston girl, she did believe that Faith was on the right side of the line.
Even if she was a skanky Ho.
Then Willow giggled.
"You screamed."
"Did not," Buffy replied as fast as she could, her eyebrows heading towards her hairline. "Slayer here. We don't scream"
"No," Willow still snickering, "you didn't scream like a little girl."
"Anyway, so what if I did scream," Buffy semi-admitted. "If you had opened a box and seen a hand in it, like some Xander's thing, you would've, too."
"You've seen Xander's thing?" Willow asked, wide-eyed. She knew Buffy hadn't but when her friend leaves an opening like that, who could pass it up?
"No! I've never," Buffy said. "It's like that movie. You know, the one with the thing in the box."
"Uh-huh," Willow said smiling. "You watch movies with things in them. Well, whatever it takes to get through the dry spells."
"Willow!" Buffy yelled indignantly. "I don't watch those kinds of movies."
"Sure," Willow said, looking at the box again and opening it. It was a real hand. Human. A crumpled piece of paper lay beside it.
Reaching in and pulling it out, she could feel a ring wrapped in the paper.
The world had changed. Amy was sure of it.
There were colors, and smells that she had never experienced before. She felt light, her muscles more powerful.
She saw Xander laying on the ground, with Faith bent over him, picking him up. The three strangers who had hurt her, hurt her father, were getting up.
A growl grew in her chest. Her pack was being hurt. She had to do something.
Faith was bent over Xander. Her hearing was starting to come back, but her eyes were still blurry. She felt Xander's chest, trying to pull him up. She hadn't knocked him out, but he wasn't fully conscious.
"Oh, Sorry Xan," she was saying more to herself, than to the man before her.
And because of her worry over the fallen man, she didn't notice one of the assassins getting to his feet.
The Shadow mage had been dazed by the flash, but he was still able to call upon his magic.
When Xander had struck him, the Mage had been just starting to phase into the shadow world, but because of the flash, he could not continue the whole way - just enough that the blow delivered to the man was only enough to knock him down, but not out.
And now he was back and was standing behind the slayer.
He would normally play with the women that he took, but this one would be too dangerous. Best to take her out and be done with it; it has been the failings of many a man not to treat a woman as the dangerous creatures that they were.
Pulling in his magic, he caused it to coalesce in his hand, darkness forming on the outline, then filling in the spaces in his hands, until a dagger had formed.
A snarl formed on his face as he drew back, aiming for the slayer's back just over her heart and he could almost feel the woman's heart's blood covering his hands.
Then, suddenly, he was flying sideways, crashing into the wall.
A snarl, almost animal-like, was coming from whatever had stuck him. Pulling himself around to face whatever had hit him, he saw that it was the girl, her eyes flashing with a green light.
"Primal!"
The girl was a primal? How?
There was no spell cast here that could cause that. He had looked the place over earlier for any spells, and found none. He knew this kind of spell would require at least an animal for the spell to pull its sprit out of, and the farm had no such animal. At least not a predator, which was what the girl was.
Drawing his magic around him, the mage prepared to end this. He wanted to make the traitor suffer, but with this much firepower on the other side, he knew his brothers wouldn't last long. Not in a straight-out fight, at least. The Mage knew that Xander was experienced in that much. It was his way. In every job they had run together, he was the one to walk in the front door, while the others went in the back.
Xander slowly regained his senses.
Faith had hit him. That slowly sank into his brain while he started to move. Luckily, nothing was broken.
Then he felt it.
Wild. Free. Energy like he felt in Sunnyvale, while he was with his pack.
Looking around, he saw that Faith was near him and she was watching, stunned as he was at Amy, growling and jumping at one of the Assassins.
But while Faith was stunned because of the unexpected actions of the girl, Xander was stunned because he could feel that little piece of the Hyena.
The Hyena felt as though it was screaming, MINE/CUB/PACK! It was a tumble of emotions and feelings.
As Xander pulled himself up it, it hit him. Amy was his daughter.
Xander had not been alone in his body for a long time. His actions were his, but he always had that tagalong with him. Amy wasn't just his daughter.
Hell, she wasn't just Misty's and Joe's, either.
She was also the Hyena's.
"How much farther?" Buffy asked from the back seat of the police cruiser.
She had taken the back seat while Willow and Officer Mac-prisoner sat in the front. He was driving while Willow was watching the street signs at least, where she could find them.
This town put them everywhere! She had seen signs on trees at the edges of the roads, some were painted on the streets, and then others were hanging from stop lights.
Really how did anyone find anything here?
"Where are we going?" the cop asked quietly. This night was beyond anything he could have imagined happing.
It all started with rousting the outsiders - get them scared and let them go.
And it had turned into the twilight zone.
"Note said the Johnson farm," Willow said absently, looking once again at the yard decorations.
This one had a white deer with Christmas lights in the antlers and a few beer cans hanging from its tail.
"You people are strange," she muttered at the cop.
The Mage lashed out with his magic. Amy just reacted, jumping to the side as the wave of energy shot past her to where it hit a rack of tools. The tools started to warp and bend until they snapped and fell to the floor in splinters of wood and metal.
Xander growled, and started to move as Faith started to move as well.
But neither got to Amy.
Vilashonra kicked out, catching the dark Slayer as she moved to help the young woman, while Michael was suddenly there on Xander.
Three fights, the different Styles.
Faith moved with all the speed of her Slayer's powers, and with each blow a counter was sent back to her by the woman assassin, though neither woman gained the upper hand.
Meanwhile, Amy and the Shadow Mage were going at it. The Mage would throw a spell at the young woman and she would dodge, and every now and then, she would take the opportunity to throw something back at the mage, some tool, pieces of wood, even an ax head, keeping the mage from getting a killing spell going.
While the Mage had been used to using killing spells, and had used them any number of times, he was also used to having a group to fall back on and cover him while he had cast the spells.
Last was Xander and Michael, and this battle was particularly brutal. Neither one tried to dodge at all, and each blow found its mark. While Faith and Vilashonra fought with graceful moves of the mix of styles that Slayers used to fight, and Amy and the Wizard didn't use any, just power and strength, Xander and Michael used their own variation of Kick boxing. The thuds of the impacts could be heard from across the barn, and with each blow, the girls flinched a little, knowing that their Xander was getting hurt, and they could do nothing but keep the fight going.
Amy, seeing a chance to take the wizard, moved. She jumped at a rope hanging from the roof of the barn and swung across the gap between them. In her head, she could hear advice on what to do, how to take the wizard out, how to hurt him, how to make him suffer. It would be justice to do that. After all, he hurt her, and he hurt her dad.
Landing next to the man, she punched at him. Only to miss, the cloak he wore making her misjudge the distance and she missed him by inches. But it was enough to startle the wizard into to a miscast, the spell shooting across the room, impacting on the wall and sending chunks of wood flying out into the Mississippi night.
The Wizard barely had time react after his miscast. This girl, this bitch, was making him look like a fool. He was a magus of the first order, an assassin who had killed any number of men, women and children. He never missed. And now this little cunt was making him look like some novice. He snarled and prepared a spell that would vaporize the little bitch.
Unfortunately, he didn't get a chance. Amy was there on him, on this creature, this thing, one of the people that brought death to her home. She stuck at him, her hands claw-like.
She felt her fingers hit flesh, then sink in as warm fluids ran across her skin. Then, with a twist of her hand, the flesh came free.
Then the world came to a stop.
Amy stood there as the man's body slow fell to the floor, wet gurgling noises came from where his throat used to be. Amy let the soggy lump of flesh drop from her hands.
Across from her, Faith and Vilashonra were going at it, both moving smoothly from one form to the next. Faith had never fought like this before. It was as if the Assassin knew her moves before she did and countered them just as easily. They drew back, breathing deeply. While Faith hadn't landed any blows that would end the fight, she didn't land just a few, and the same could be said for the assassin.
"Fess up," Faith said, "you're a Slayer."
"No," Vilashonra said, "I am not a freak."
"Hey," Faith snapped, "no freaks here, but you!"
"That's not the word on the streets," Vilashonra said as the Slayer and the assassin circled each other, each looking for a weakness to use. "Your leader likes to fuck anything that is evil, and you just plain like to fuck anything. Even took on a whole bar one time."
"Bitch, you just bought yourself a whole world of pain," Faith snarled.
Faith knew about those rumors, and each a grain of truth in them. B did like to mac with bad guys, she just usually didn't know they were 'til it was too late.
And the bar incident - she had tried for years to forget that. She had been twelve and alone, thinking that she could handle herself. She had always looked older than her years, and at the time she looked like a sixteen-year-old trying to pass for eighteen. She didn't pay attention to her drink, but someone dropped something in it. The next thing she knew, it was the next morning and she was hurting. And people were talking about the train she pulled in the back, and wanting to be the next one on board.
"Not as much as yours," the assassin smirked. "When I kill you, then I will kill the little one, after she has enjoyed Michael tender touch, and then I will take my man back. I might even keep a little part of him as keepsake. His ear? Maybe a finger? No, his dick. I'll nail it to a wall with his balls, a reminder to anyone that fucks with me."
The assassin's eyes looked around the room. As she took her eyes off Faith, Faith moved, only to be countered again. But she also noticed something - a thing cord around the assassin neck. It had bits of bone, and teeth wrapped into it. She had seen them before.
A fetish.
She had been called out to help with a Russian drug lord who had what seemed to be Slayers working for him. But it turned out he was actually a necromancer.
The fetish was made from the hair, bones and teeth of a Slayer, then soaked in her blood. It gave the wearer the powers of a Slayer, but had to be soaked in their blood every couple months.
That was the weakness - something she could use. If Faith could get to it, she would win and break the stalemate of the fight.
She cut loose with a side kick, followed it with punch into the assassin's chest. While both were blocked, it drove the assassin back. She then tried a spin kick, only to miss as the assassin dove to the ground and did a swiping kick at Faith's ankles, knocking her to the ground, almost falling onto Xander's Zulu Spear.
Before Faith could move, Vilashonra was there, holding the spear, its point at her chest. She could feel it as it cut into her chest. Then both heard the sickening ripping noise from across the room, and Amy's scream of rage as she moved to help Faith.
Amy moved across the barn almost faster than the eye could follow, knowing she had to save Faith. But as she got closer, the assassin moved.
Amy came to stop as the blade touched her neck. She could feel the sharp blade scratching her skin, and looking down, she saw that Faith was in the same situation. As she started to pull back, the assassin pushed harder on Faith causing the downed Slayer to suck in a breath.
"You move," the assassin said, "the slut dies."
Across from them, the fight between Xander and Michael wasn't going as smoothly. Blood flowed from cuts on both of their bodies. The styles that both used were brutal, with little in the way of defense, the only objective to beat your opponent down. Xander knew other forms, but he was not a master of them. This type of fighting he knew. And he knew Michael would fight with the same style. They had sparred enough when working together, and knew that each other were weapons men, not fist fighters.
Xander was pulling back to take a breather when Michael made his first and last mistake in the fight.
"You know I'm going to take my time with the girl," Michael said a smirk on his face. He was just trying to get Xander mad, mad enough to make a mistake.
But as he said that, he suddenly realized that it was the one thing that he shouldn't have said. Xander's eyes went flat, and a tinge of green flashed through them.
Then, before Michael could move, Xander was on him, smashing into him, not caring that the return blows were getting through. The pain from those blows just added to the rage in him formed from the thought that someone would hurt one of his girls.
His daughter. He had thought of her that way for a while, in sprit at least, and then he found out, it was in the flesh as well.
Then it was over. Xander had grasped the man around the throat and closed his hands, putting more and more pressure on the man's throat 'til he felt the cartilage give with little pops.
He stared into the assassin's eyes 'til there was no life left in them, then let the body drop to the ground.
Turning, he saw what was going on with his girls. Amy was standing with a knife pressed to her neck. One move and he knew Vilashonra would cut, and the other on the ground with his spear to her chest.
It was a no-win situation.
Buffy and Willow were driving down the road again.
It was the twelfth time that they had gone up and down it. The long country road was at least twelve miles long.
"You sure this is where it's supposed be?" Buffy asked as she smacked her gum, looking the deputy, who just shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know, but it's here somewhere."
He had driven this route almost every day for the last three years. And something was wrong. A house was missing. He couldn't tell where but it was gone.
"It's a masking spell," Willow said. "I can't get a lock on it yet. It's shadow magic - hard to get a hold of unless you have it in front of you. Just drive to the end of the road and we'll do it again. I'll find it."
Just as the patrol car sped up the road, a house slowly formed behind them.
The Masking spell broke as the wizard died.
Xander pulled out his knife, a special one he had specially made for him.
"Villy," he begged, "don't do this. I don't want to hurt you"
"You see, that's the thing," the assassin said. "I want to hurt you."
"No, you don't," Xander reasoned. "I know you. You won't hurt them for any reason."
"Hurting you would be enough. You left me, left us. I had to fight my way back up to the top again because YOU betrayed us," Vilashonra snarled. "I couldn't kill a little girl for no reason," Xander whispered.
"You did a lot more for no reason. You were on your way to be the best in the brotherhood. You would have taken me to the top. But no! One little at the little red headed bitch and you walked away!"
"Vilashonra, I'm begging you," Xander pleaded. "I don't want to hurt you, you're one of my girls. But I love Faith and Amy's my daughter."
He heard Amy gasp at that.
"Your girl?" Vilashonra said, spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke.
"YOUR GIRL! Would you walk away from one of them and leave her in what you left me? I was sent to hell because of you! They had me and questioned me over and over to find out what you knew, where you went, what you took with you."
Vilashonra pressed the point of the spear into Faith a little harder.
"Now you got you another piece of ass," she snarled, "and a daughter in one go. A little family. And what did you leave me? Nothing but promises of power. Empty promises. Well, if I can't have what I want, then neither can you"
The assassin tightened her arms and started to push the spear and pull the knife. Then she stopped, as a click was heard and the sound of coiled spring was released.
The ballistic knife in Xander's hand released his blade, the point flying across the room and impacting on the woman, its point hitting her square in the throat, cutting into her with the 1800 lbs of pressure.
On its way into her, it cut the fetish, breaking the magic and all the pains and hurts that the Assassin received in the fight caught up to her at one time.
But the blade didn't stop there. It cut deeper into her flesh, slicing tendons and veins as it went.
Vilashonra drew a deep breath she could feel her life blood seeping out of the wounds. She drew herself up, the pain clearing her mind on what she needed to do to hurt Xander.
Kill his girls.
Faith saw the look coming across the assassin's face. The determination.
And realized knew what she was about to do.
So Faith did the only thing she could think of doing. She pulled her legs up and kicked out at the assassin, hitting her square in the legs, driving her away from Amy and herself.
And the fight was over.
The barn was still.
Xander and his girls stood in silence, looking down at the bodies of the fallen assassins.
"Why?" Xander whispered to no one.
Faith didn't have an answer. She didn't understand the question, and understood it at the same time.
Xander was a simple man. When he loved, he loved forever. He might be hurt and hurt the people he loved, but he still loved them. And this woman he had loved.
But he had killed her to save Amy and herself.
"She made her mind up, Xan," Faith finally said. "She wanted to hurt you more than she wanted to live."
"But why?" Xander asked, his voice sounding like a lost little boy, asking for someone, anyone to tell him how to go home.
"I don't know," Faith replied. "Love? Hate? Who knows? She was twisted."
"Any more than I am?" Xander asked.
"Do you want to kill Janet? Willow? Buffy?" Faith asked looking into Xander's eyes.
"No!" He almost yelled.
"Then no," Faith said, smiling at her man. "You aren't twisted. You will get on with your life, and you will be ok. SHE is the one that brought this on."
There was a gasp. Amy was kneeling over the mage, looking at the bloody mess of his throat. She was holding the hand with blood from where she ripped out the man's neck, holding it up to her nose and sniffing at it.
"Amy?" Xander asked softly, "what's going on?"
"It smells good," Amy whispers back. "Why does it smell so good?"
"Come here." Xander demanded.
"But I'm hungry," Amy said, looking down at the body.
"AMY!" Xander snapped. He could remember the call when he had first been possessed, with all the new feelings and senses.
Amy moved next to Xander. She was looking around the room, now that the fight was over. She didn't feel right - her skin was on fire, the smells were wonderful, and all the blood...
She could almost taste it.
"I've got to get her away from here," Xander said, pulling the girl toward the door.
Just as he got to the door, he could see a police car pulled up into the yard.
"Damn," Xander whispered and pulled Amy back into the shadows.
His life here was hell as it was now.
Now with this, it would be worse. And with what Amy was going through, it would be impossible.
He had thought to get her to a shaman, or a witch doctor to help her. He wouldn't be able to do that from jail.
He turned to Faith.
"Go home," he told the dark-haired Slayer. "Pack my stuff. I'll let you know where to send it. And if you want to come with it, come. But it's up to you."
"I'll be with the first load," Faith replied looking at the girl. "Get her out of here, stud. I'll catch up."