Chapter Nineteen

Buffy slammed her fist, full force, at the window again, and Kinsey watched wide-eyed as cracks spiderwebbed through the supposedly shatter-proof glass.

"God damn it." He muttered, seeing his grand plan go up in smoke. Furious, he jabbed the transmit button on the intercom. "This is Kinsey, this project is terminated. Kill the witch. Kill the Slayer. None of this ever happened."

He turned to leave, and threw his last command over his shoulder. "Destroy it all."

With that, he made his way quickly through the facility back to the surface where his car was waiting. He had called his driver to come and wait as soon as he had been informed that he'd been betrayed by the Trust. He might have not been ready to abandon his plan at the time, but he was not foolish enough not to be prepared if necessary.

"Let's go." He said, sliding into the back seat.

He continued to fume as they pulled off. Betrayed by the Trust, he would have to revise several of his alternate plans. They weren't even a half a mile away from the facility when they hit something, hard, and something underneath the car broke with a clearly heard crunch snap. If it hadn't been for the driver's quick reaction, the car would surely have crashed. Of course, that didn't stop Kinsey from snapping at him anyway.

"What are you doing, you idiot?" Kinsey barked. "Get us out of here, now."

Accustomed to the verbal abuse, the driver said nothing as he got out to inspect the damage. A moment later, he settled back into the front seat. "I'm sorry, sir but whatever we hit has completely broken the axle. We aren't going anywhere unless it's on foot. Should I attempt to return to the base for another vehicle?"

Almost before he finished speaking, he noticed the bobbing headlights headed straight for them in the rear view mirror. After the spin that they had gone through, he had no idea which direction they were facing, and he didn't know if they were friends or enemies. He pulled his gun out from the holster beneath the seat. A few minutes later, they found themselves surrounded by military vehicles, and several weapons pointed at them, ranging from crossbows to P90s to Zats. With a glance back at his boss, the driver tossed the gun out of the window and held out both hands where they could see him. Kinsey didn't pay him enough to die for him. He wasn't even the VP anymore.

In the back, Kinsey paled and shrunk in his seat when he saw the tall blonde climb out of the lead vehicle.

"Kinsey." Sam acknowledged as she opened his door, a hard, angry glint making her blue eyes look like arctic ice. "Fancy running into you here."

Dragging him out of the car, she shoved him towards the commander of SG-7. "Secure him, and the driver."

"You can't do this." Kinsey sputtered indignantly. "Do you know who I am?"

"A man in trouble." The commander smirked. "The Colonel's kid? Friends of the President? Oh yeah, I'd say, you're in BIG trouble."

"Hey, you found the Troll Hammer." A dark haired young woman suddenly stepped into the lights, hefting a large hammer almost bigger than she was. She smiled widely. "Thanks, man." Then, her eyes turned cold and hard. "Now, shut up before I beat you to death with it."

Less sure of the rogue slayer's redemption, Kinsey opted to go along quietly as his hands were secured behind his back and he was pushed into the vehicle.

When they reached the bunker, the first thing they noticed was the reinforced door hanging sadly by its hinges. Xander took one look at it and quipped. "Oh yeah, Buffy's definitely been here."

Everyone got out of their vehicles and gathered at the back, stocking up on ammo for their respective weapons, while Faith, Xander and Dawn strapped themselves with everything from daggers to short and longswords, as did Angel and Spike. Wesley, Gunn and Illyria were staying topside for anyone who got past them. It had taken some fast talking on Wesley's part to convince the Old One to remain with him. When they were ready, Xander lobbed one of SG-7's concussion grenades right into the entrance, and every covered their ears and closed their eyes tightly as it went off with a huge bang and a flash of excruciatingly bright light. Faith's head was ringing, despite the distance, but she didn't let it stop her when they charged inside.

Inside, they saw men and woman on the ground, clutching their heads in pain. Satisfied that at least the humans on this level were neutralized, Faith announced that there were a good number of demons beneath them. They had just reached the elevator when the sounds of automatic gunfire echoed up the shaft. Before they could wonder, Faith gasped and clutched at her chest. The feelings of rage she had sensed earlier were nothing compared to the panicked terror she was feeling now. She knew without question that something really, really bad had just happened to Willow. She looked around at the others. "We've got to hurry."

Outside of the elevator was thankfully empty, but the first wave of attackers, demons and human, struck before they had made it five feet, at the first intersecting corridor. Soldiers from the front, demons on both sides. Their soldiers exchanged fire with the NID soldiers while Xander, Dawn and Riley fought a group of demons on the left while Faith, Spike and Angel took the demons on the right.

Faith held nothing back, knowing that she had to get to Buffy and Willow as fast as she could. They had all been repairing their battered relationships over the last few weeks, even holding out the hands of friendship to her like they had in the beginning, and Faith was determined not to let some whiney-assed, useless sack of lazy government shit fuck it all up now. Not if she had anything to say about it.

She would have been surprised to know that Xander and Dawn were thinking along the same lines as they hacked and slashed without mercy, Dawn showing her fledgling magic skills with protective spells that made the demon mercenaries' blows less effective that they should have been. Her thoughts flipped back and forth between reaching her sister before she died again and reaching Willow before she went dark again.

"Hey, you two got anything in your bag of tricks?" Sam asked the two men in their group that had been identified as witches as she reloaded her weapon. "Now would be a good time to do it."

"Our combat spells are usually lethal to humans." One of them warned.

"Not really caring at the moment." Carter responded flatly, glad that Janet had opted to stay topside with Sam Finn, SG-7 and half of the AI team to guard their prisoners and watch the entrance for stragglers. "Pick the one that will cause the most damage with the least fatalities and let it rip."

- - - BtVS - - SG: 1 - - -

Just as the glass finally shattered and Buffy leapt through, she saw a man run into the room and open fire. She watched in horror as bullets struck the limp form of her best friend, and a rage unlike anything she's ever felt filled her so fast that she didn't even have time to wonder what she was going to do. She landed on the ground, the Scythe suddenly in her hand, and moved in blurring motion, deflecting the rest of the bullets, until the rifle merely clacked, empty.

"Buffy?"

The Scythe clattered to the ground as Buffy spun around at the faint whisper. Willow was staring at her, a little smile on her face despite the pain and weariness in her eyes. She had been hit three times. Twice in the chest, and a graze on her neck. Her life's blood was gushing out of her with every beat of her heart. Buffy put her hands over the wounds, knowing that she was too late, but desperately trying to stop them from bleeding anyway.

"Please, Willow." She cried, tears pouring down her face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough. Don't die. Please don't die."

"It's all right." Willow whispered, then coughed, and blood bubbled from her mouth. "You did everything you could. I'm going to rest now."

"No, Willow, you can't rest." Buffy panicked. "We have to get you fixed up." She began pulling on the shackles around her wrists. Every breath her friend took made another dribble of blood come out of her mouth. She pulled with all of her strength, hearing the thick chain links creak apart. "Please, Willow, just a little longer. I can get you to a hospital."

She didn't hear the soldier replace the clip of his rifle as she pulled on the chains. She didn't hear him chamber a new round as she begged for her friend to keep breathing just a little longer. The first bullet slammed into her back just as one of the chains came apart, and the second and third bullets missed as she fell forward. Without thinking, Buffy shielded her friend's body as more bullets struck her. Her only thought was to get Willow out, and she kept pulling on the other chain, until it finally broke as well.

The soldier and the doctors in the doorway didn't know how the blonde was still alive, much less standing after half a dozen rifle shots to the back. The doctors wished that they could get the girls strapped to a table to see how any of it was possible. The soldier, however, for the first time since being recruited by the NID, wondered at the sanctity of their mission, as he watched this young girl, a savior herself if what he'd heard was true, beg and plead for her friend to live even as she was so obviously dying herself.

Buffy sank down onto the cold floor with Willow in her arms as her legs finally gave out on her. After a moment, she couldn't feel them at all. She knew that one, if not both, of her lungs had been hit. She'd felt at least one rib shatter. She was bleeding out, and quickly. None of it mattered though, because all she realized, or cared about, was that Willow wasn't breathing anymore.

"Willow, please." Buffy begged with her last, dying breath. "Wake up, baby. Please, you have to wake up."

She was still begging when the darkness finally took her.