Canceling the Bugpocolypse
June 24th, 2013
Tromping through the coastal marshes just north of the Massachusetts line, three young women, and a young man swatted at the ever present swarm of bloodsucking vampires. Well, the insect variety anyway.
Damn mosquitoes!
"Don't say it Xander!"
"But dear..." the man whined to his dark-haired wife.
"Sorry Xander, but I agree with Dawn. No bastardizing Admiral Farragut quotes!"
"Et tu Willow?" He said, slapping another of the buzzing annoyances.
"OUCH!"
Turning, they all looked at their blond companion, who had somehow inserted the point of a stake into her forearm.
"Buffy?" All three of the others asked in somewhat eerie unison.
"Okay... so the little bastards are too small and fast to stake. I had to wait until one landed."
"I swear she hasn't been right since we ran into Harmony last year," Dawn muttered.
Nodding sagely, Willow looked down at the GPS coordinates displayed on phone she was carrying.
Turning she slogged another thirty feet.
"Here!" She chirped cheerfully.
"Here?" The blond turned her nose up at the muck and sea grasses surrounding them.
"Here." The redhead replied.
Shivering, the brunet took Xander's hand in hers. "This place is creepy as fuck."
Looking around, the young man could only agree with her as he pulled her closer into his arms.
"Hey," Buffy replied. "Ease off on the mushiness you two. We don't need that lovecrafter demon Giles mentioned showing up."
Willow and Dawn rolled their eyes.
"That's H. P. Lovecraft," Dawn groaned. "And he was a writer. Not a demon. Though I do guess that there was a reason he set his stories around here."
It had taken two days for the council and their contacts to find a means to contain the insect invasion now centered on Cleveland. Luckily, no other giant cockroaches had come through before Giles was able to assemble a large enough coven of practitioners to close the gaping maw the first one had left. Still, quadrillions of other bugs had come through, and while most were harmless, and the really big one was weirdly entertaining as it ambled eastward, there were demonic bugs in the mix that were starting to cause problems.
It had been Clem who had come through for them, screaming up in his Lyft affiliated vehicle and piling out with the latin translation of a ritual to summon The host of QuAh.
Pulling a silver bangle off her wrist she magically expanded it to a circle five feet across before laying it atop the muck. Stepping inside the circle she took a seat in the mud and water. "Okay you three, take your places!"
"Here?!" Buffy squeaked. "It's like all muddy!"
"SIT!" Willow bellowed sternly.
Eyes wide, all three of them sat down in their specific places inside the circle very quickly. Soon all four of them were soaked from the waist down, the water squeezing out of the sucking mud beneath them and flowing over their crossed legs. Reaching out she took Dawn and Buffy's hands. Xander mirroring her action from the other side. As the sun rose to noon, Willow closed her eyes and began to chant.
"Qui egrediebatur vocamus eam exterminati sunt pluviis ut ostenderent lucem"
"Qui egrediebatur et reptat vocamus cito"
"Nos vocamus eam fructum texens"
"Dicimus surculum Khepri manum interficientis"
"Nos castra evocare QuAh"
Repeating the chant, first Xander, then Buffy, then finally Dawn closing their eyes and joining with her. The warm air, buzzing of the flying leeches and the distant sound of the ocean, even the cool water and mud surrounding their lower bodies built into a sensation of power. Swaying back and forth to the rhythm, the chant continuied for the required two hours as a glow slowly built. First at their hands, then through their arms and bodies and finally into the silver ring each was sitting against.
As the ritual completed, there was a bright flash and the power shot from their joined hands to the center of the circle.
Opening their eyes they beheld a tall, thin, slightly slouched, balding man in his early forties holding a similarly thin, dark haired, teenage girl, her eyes blinking.
Looking down at the four of them the man seemed puzzled. "I thought Earth-Shin was deserted."
Xander went to stand and greet the two in the center of the circle, only to find he could not move. Looking down, he noticed that the rising tide had forced more water into the surrounding mud, into which they had sunk and was now solidly packed over each of the ritual participants legs and up to their waists. The magical flash having dried the muck solid.
"Uh, I hate to summon and ask favors unrelated to why we made the summons, but do you think one of you could help us out of this muck?"
Hours later, having finally escaped the grasping embrace of the coastal wetlands, six people descended the stairs of the Watcher's Council aircraft. Climbing into a van that they had left at the airport the previous evening.
Along the way, the four locals had explained about the demonic insect invasion and Willow had performed a healing spell on the girl, resetting her brain back to its state prior to the modifications that had been required to defeat Scion and the damage done afterward by Contessa.
Stopping the car at the edge of the city park where the gihugmongous cockroach had taken up temporary residence, all six clambered out. Moving past the trees the two outworlders froze.
Danny Hebert turned to the one-eyed young man. "When you said you had a titanic cockroach invasion, this is NOT what I had in mind."
Beside him, his daughter Taylor giggled. "I can hear him."
The creatures head cocked to one side and it eyed the girl.
"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
Moving forward the girl once known as the villain Skitter, then the hero Weaver and finally as Khepri the Slayer of Scion, wrapped her arms around one drooping, tree trunk sized feeler and gave it a hug.
"Aren't you a cutie!" She said with a brilliant smile. "Mom would have loved you!"
A/N: The summoning chant in English:
We call forth she who controls the insects
We call forth she who crawls quickly
We call forth she who weaves
We call forth Khepri scion slayer
We call forth the host of QuAh