Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise is mine, although I like to think that I came up with an interesting central concept for the plot of this part of my trilogy...
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The Satan War
"You're kiddin' me, right?" Faith asked, looking slightly incredulously between Angel and Danny. "We're up against the Four freakin' Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and one of them's his future self?"
"There's also the Beast, the vampire who bit Blade's mother, and a potentially invulnerable Egyptian priest; you can't really forget them-" Angel pointed out.
"I'm not forgetting them; I'm just focusing on the bit of this mess that's really freaking me out," Faith interjected, waving a frustrated hand at Angel even as she focused her attention on Danny. "You went nuts in some alternate future, and that guy just... what, came back to try and kill you?"
"Actually, I found out about him when some ghosts from that future came back to try and kill me to stop me becoming him, I ended up following them to Clockwork's base and saw the future where I'd gone psychotic and was trying to destroy the city, he went back to try and ensure that the events that led to me becoming him happened the way they had originally," Danny said, waving a hand in an awkwardly dismissive manner that made it clear he wasn't ready to talk about the obvious issues the presence of his other self introduced to this equation. "Look, it's a whole complicated thing and we really don't have the time to worry about that right now; we've kind of got bigger problems right now."
"Danny's right," Cole said, looking sympathetically at the young half-ghost- he still remembered how he'd felt when he'd learned that they were fighting his future self during his original mission with the Coven, and he'd had the added 'excuse' that he was partly possessed by an alternate version of himself and partly insane from an overload of demonic power; from what Danny had told them, the other guy was just him with some extra power from another ghost thrown in- before he focused on talking to the others. "The important thing right now is that we know who and what we're up against; how these 'Horsemen' gained their power isn't as important as the fact that they're here and we have to stop them."
"Yeah, about that, what happened to the Four Horsemen Piper and Phoebe told me about?" Paige asked, looking over at Leo. "Didn't you guys encounter four Horsemen who were just four horsemen about a year before I showed up?"
"Those were just the four Horsemen of our world, and apart from being rather powerful they were otherwise fairly generic; it's possible that Satan wanted to recruit more distinctive fighters for this kind of assault," Leo said, shrugging uncertainly at Paige's sceptical expression at his theory. "Well, it's not like we've got a lot of past experience to draw on here; apocalypses don't really happen on this kind of scale that often!"
"Can we just focus on the fucking crisis we've got to deal with right now, OK?" Blade said, glaring over at the witch and the Whitelighter. "We've got enough problems without you trying to work out where this bastard got his forces from; they're here, we're here, and we don't want them going up there, so let's just take the bastard out and worry about the goddamn fine print like where he went while on a recruitment drive later."
"Precisely," Angel said, nodding in agreement of Blade's assessment before he turned his attention to the rest of the Coven. "OK, our first priority is to work out which of us attacks what groups once we're in there. Hellboy, you're our physically strongest member in one-on-one combat; you can tackle the Beast."
"Any recommended strategy?" Hellboy asked with a slightly grim smile.
"Hit him 'til he can't get up any more; guy's tough, but his combat style's pretty basic, and he's slow to boot," Faith said resolutely, a nod from Angel confirming his agreement with the Slayer's strategy.
"Perfect," Hellboy said, clenching his stone fist and flexing his fingers as he checked his gun with his other hand; Angel wasn't sure what the weapon could do against the Beast's hide after he'd seen the thing take shotgun blasts from Wesley's gun during their first fight without any real sign of damage, but he wasn't going to underestimate what the guy could do with his own equipment.
"Illyria, you can go after Im Ho Tep," the world's first vampire with a soul continued, looking over at the former Old One (He briefly thought about ordering Swamp Thing to help her, but decided against it; given the creature's plant-like nature, he didn't want to risk Im Ho Tep summoning a hoard of flies or toads to eat Swamp Thing if things took a turn for the worst). "If he's Famine like we think he is, you're strong enough to fight him and anything else he has to throw at you, and you don't actually need to eat, so any additional powers he might have shouldn't affect you."
"I shall do so," Illyria said, giving the same slightly sadistic smile that had always unnerved Angel even without Fred's true appearance alongside her to provide a direct contrast between the two women.
"Danny, Deadman," Angel continued, turning to look at the ghosts to try and take his mind off that particular issue, "the two of you see what you can do about fighting... Dark Danny; maybe two ghosts combined together can generate the kind of power necessary to do some damage to that guy."
"I don't really have much offensive abilities; all I've ever really done is possess people-" Deadman said, looking awkwardly at the vampire.
"Try going into Danny; even if you can't attack yourself, maybe you can... give him a boost or something," Angel said, shrugging slightly out of a lack of anything else to suggest in that regard- he had a plan and he'd stick with it; he couldn't afford to start second-guessing his strategy now-, before he continued talking. "Lucian, Spike, Blade, you're up against La Marga; Spike's pretty much immune to conventional disease, I'd assume that Lucian's physiology gives him a similar strength given that he's virtually immortal, and Blade's prior experience with what the guy's capable of could be an advantage."
"I'm better with disease than humans, but since I was never in a position to be exposed to anything serious I can't know-" Lucian began, looking slightly apologetic as he addressed Angel.
"Right now you're one of the best guys I've got for tackling something like that; just do what you can, back out if you think he's having an effect on you, and we'll worry about other details later," Angel said, nodding reassuringly at the lycan as he turned to more effectively address the rest of the Coven. "Al, Blaze, Willow, your powers make you best equipped to handle large groups; you'll be our front line of assault when we're going up against the army. The rest of you... just do what you can in the fight and try and stay alive; I'm not sure what happens if you die in Hell, but this isn't the time to find out."
The rest of the Coven nodded grimly at their leader, solemn smiles on their faces as the relevant Coven members drew their weapons, while those with powers began to test their respective abilities in preparation for the upcoming attack.
"And the first stage of your plan is?" Lady Death asked, her tone grim as her army looked expectantly at her for their next orders; Angel wasn't entirely sure if her forces would even acknowledge the Coven as independent entities if it wasn't for her.
"Simple; we'll break down the main courtyard door while Eric and Batman lead your army to those back entrances they discovered so that they can take Satan's army by surprise while they're focused on us," Angel said, looking back at Lady Death with a slight smile. "We might be fighting on their turf, but that doesn't mean we have to give them the chance to use that knowledge against us; if we can keep them contained, that gives us a chance to get the upper hand against them."
"Sounds like a plan," Cole said with a smile, raising his hands to generate a pair of energy balls that he tossed casually between his palms in a juggling-like motion before he brought his hands together, releasing a brief burst of golden energy. "Let's do it."
"It's all or nothing, and we're going to make sure those guys leave with nothing," Willow said resolutely, energy crackling around her fingertips as her eyes briefly darkened at the thought of the power she was about to unleash. "They will not destroy Earth and get away with it."
"You can say that again," Angel said, nodding in confirmation of Willow's assessment of the situation- so long as she retained her focus on using her power against their enemies, he had faith in whatever amount of power she had to use right now- before turning to look at Lady Death. "If you could...?"
"Of course," Lady Death replied with a confirming nod as she turned to look at her army, drawing their attention with almost natural ease. "My fellow warriors, follow the ones called Eric Draven and Bruce Wayne; they will take you to where you must travel in order to successfully penetrate this facility. You are to obey their commands as though I was issuing them to you myself; the stakes are too high for me to be the only person to be issuing orders at this time."
The sounds of confirmation from the assembled demonic forces around them were far from individually distinct, but it conveyed their intentions effectively enough as Lady Death's army followed Batman and Eric along the walls on either side of the main door.
Glancing around at the rest of the Coven, Angel allowed himself a slight smile at the sight of Selina not-so-subtly hurrying after Batman while Constantine moved over to join Eric, but he didn't bother objecting to the sudden improvisation. Given what Batman had told them about his relationship with Selina before her death in his world in the short time he'd spent on the original Coven, he didn't have the heart to separate them, and with the current stakes facing them he felt more comfortable knowing that Constantine- a 'permanent' member of the Coven, rather than one of the many reserves they'd just assembled for this mission- was present to monitor Eric's team's progress as they prepared for the upcoming attack.
"So," Spike said, looking over at Angel with a slightly awkward smile after a few moments had passed, Lady Death's forces now down to a comparatively small portion of their original numbers around the remaining members of the Coven as the rest of her army followed their temporarily assigned leaders to their positions, "think that this is going to be it?"
"The big, anti-Apocalyptic stand that prophecy said we'd make?" Angel said, shrugging uncertainly at Spike's query, his manner creating an almost dismissive attitude towards the prophecy that had once defined his existence. "Maybe it will be and maybe it won't; right now, the only thing that matters is stopping this guy."
"I'm not meaning to sound like I'm poking holes in this plan, but you do know that we'll probably have to kill Satan to ensure that he doesn't try this again in a few months after we've stopped this attempt, right?" Caine asked, looking slightly sceptically over at Angel. "I mean, I only stopped this guy when I fought him because he had a limited amount of time to do the job in..."
"All we can do is take out as many of his forces as possible, hit him hard and fast when he gets here, and hope that it's enough," Angel interjected, looking resolutely over at the ex-cop. "I've already said that we're taking a gamble just trying something like this, but if you've got a better idea-"
"No better ideas come to mind; I just want to make sure we all know it's all or nothing," Caine said, looking back at Angel with grim resolution practically chiselled into his features. "I was willing to kill myself to stop this guy when I still had doubts about religion and the afterlife in general; don't doubt that I'm in this to the end if you think we've got a chance."
"We've got a chance," Spawn confirmed, blades sprouting from around his wrists as he clenched his fists in grim preparation for the attack that he was about to mount. "We just took down a bunch of the supernatural world's best killers before we came down here; we can handle anything a bunch of random demons can throw at us."
"That's the kind of attitude I like," Milton said, grinning over at Spawn's comments, the ex-convict briefly checkubg his gun for bullets before he turned his attention back to Angel. "Shall we?"
"No time like the present," Angel said, after a brief glance at his watch and a quick mental calculation confirmed that Eric and Batman's forces should be approaching a useful position by now. Turning to look at the remaining members of the Coven, he smiled and indicated the large door before them with a wave of his hand. "Gentlemen, if you please?"
Nodding in resolution, Hellboy, Illyria and Spawn walked up the door in front of them, drew back their hands, and launched their most powerful punches at the solid surface, followed by Cole hurling a couple of energy balls as Danny fired green ectoplasmic blasts and Ghost Rider shot a burst of hellfire from his hellfire-enhanced shotgun.
For a moment, the door remained standing, hinges and edges blacked and cracked by the assault but otherwise intact, but then Blue Devil and Etrigan launched their own fire-blasts at the door, along with a quick blast of dark psychic energy from Raven. After a few seconds of standing uncertainly in its arch, the door finally collapsed, leaving Angel and Lady Death standing in the middle of the now-open arch as the rest of the Coven took up position behind their leader and their new ally, drawing the attention of the vast demonic army inside the courtyard as they turned to stare incredulously at the new arrivals.
"What the Hell-?" Dark Danny said, floating up into the air from the middle of the room to look at the source of this new attack, his eyes widening in an almost comical fashion as he took in the new arrivals. "You?"
"Yep," Danny replied, waving briefly at his other self with a smile that looked more confident that the halfa probably felt; it wasn't every day that people had to face an enemy force on the scale that they were currently up against with such a comparatively small opposing force. "And I brought some friends."
"Hi," Angel said, waving in a mockingly polite manner at the powerful ghost even as Dark Danny glared incredulously at him. "I'm Angel, and this is the Coven of Reformed Supernaturals; I believe you boss is aware of our existence?"
"Angelus?" the Beast's voice said, followed by the large creature's head appearing above the swarm of demons around the room; Angel assumed that his old foe was standing on the throne to get a better look at them. "We were informed that you would be... otherwise occupied."
"We found out that we had more immediate priorities to occupy our time right now," Angel said, concealing the slight fear he felt at the sight of the Beast- after the beatings he'd received from that thing the last couple of times he'd fought it, and the obvious lack of the weapon Angelus had used to kill it in their final fight, some apprehension was to be expected- as he focused on the task at hand. "What's important right now isn't how we all got here, but what we're going to do now that we're here; we will accept your unconditional surrender if you want to end violence now."
"You really think that is going to stop us?" Dark Danny asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow as he smirked at the vampire with a casual arrogance that put Angel in mind of Angelus's old certainty that he was going to prevail in his self-assigned challenge.
"Not really, but I had to give you all the chance," Angel replied, raising one hand in preparation as he looked back at his team, smiling as he saw the distinctive glow around Cole and Willow's hands as the rest of the Coven aimed their weapons at the surrounding army; whatever was about to happen, the Coven were all ready for it.
"You really think that you can stop us?" Dark Danny asked, smirking enthusiastically as he stared at the vampire, indicating the army around him with a broad sweep of his hand, the other three Horsemen visible from the centre as Deacon Frost and Im Ho Tep used what Angel assumed were their powers to raise themselves up over the heads of their followers, the distinctive gleam of splashing blood around Frost matched by the faint swirl of sand around Im Ho Tep. "You have barely a fraction of the army we have-"
The sound of two near-simultaneous crashes on either side of the rear area of the hall was enough to stop the powerful ghost mid-rant, glancing back just in time to see a figure in a long black cloak with massive bat-like wings flying into the air from a side door, grinning as he took in the surrounding army before he tossed an evidently fresh corpse down amongst them.
"Hello," Batman said, a satisfied grin as he glared at the black-and-white clad ghost before he indicated the additional forces coming through the door after him. "I thought I heard someone accuse us of a shortage of resources; I simply felt a need to clarify that there's more to us than you think."
It might be a small difference in the grand scheme of things, but the slight apprehension that appeared on the faces of some of the nearby demons helped to reassure Angel of one thing; whatever opponents they were up against, they still had some doubts about their chances of victory.
With Batman and Eric's forces having cut off the immediate possible avenues of escape, these guys were now trapped in a confined area with enemies on all three sides at the possible doors they could use to escape; it didn't totally level the metaphorical scales, but it was more than they might have had otherwise.
"You may still have the numbers edge, but there's a lot more to winning a fight than numerical superiority, and, as you can see, we currently have the territory fairly securely under control," Angel said, staring grimly as Dark Danny turned away from Batman to look at him with a new sense of uncertainty about him.
"We're only going to say this once more, Frost," Blade said, clearly just as aware of the Horsemens' new sense of uncertainty as Angel was, his gaze fixed on the man who'd made him what he was. "Call off the goddamned apocalypse, and we might be willing to let you all stay down here and keep whatever passes for your lives; keep this up, and we will destroy you."
The subsequent roar of rage as Dark Danny charged towards them might have been expected, but that didn't mean that Angel had to feel satisfied about it; planning a fight against completely unfamiliar opponents was always a tricky prospect. He barely had enough time to shift into a combat stance before Danny had charged toward, intercepting his other self's attack with a ramming motion as Deadman seemed to literally leap into Danny's body, infusing the younger ghost with a subtle red glow as he and his future self flew apart while continuing to glare at each other.
"You already lost to me once, old man," Danny said, his hands glaring with green/red energy as he glared at his future self, a slightly doubled tone to his voice as he spoke as though he was suddenly two people talking at once. "Care to try that a second time?"
"GO!" Angel yelled, charging into the mass of demons in front of him before any of their current enemies could take their eyes away from the sight of the two Dannys about to face off, his sword taking two demon heads away from their bodies before anyone around them could say anything, the other Coven members already hurrying towards their assigned or personally chosen targets.
The battle was on, and Angel had literally no idea what the final result was going to be; right now, his priority was to lead him and his team to take down every hostile demon around him before Satan emerged on the scene and hope for the best.