Shado of the Covenant

Chapter 36

Guardians

Within the United States of America, in the State of California, Faith finally arrived in Heatherfield. She took longer than she thought she would have. Not only was California a huge state (luckily she was given funding from Shado), but she came across a few daemons and whatnot and had no choice but to vanquish them before too many more innocent people became snacks. She only wished she was allowed to vanquish the Californian weirdos along with them.

However, maybe she should have been a bit faster as the city was smoking with explosions and-well she wasn't sure what had been going on for the last week or so, but she did know that the city appeared to have disappeared from the map, GPS or paper, which was another reason it took so long as they had to walk from the nearest village.

"What's going on… are we there yet?" the annoyingly bubbly and optimistic, yet cute pink haired girl whined while the four other girls sighed.

Faith had found the girls in a huge spot of bother, but luckily managed to destroy that annoying cat thing that gave them their magical powers, but not before saving the blonde girl from a nasty looking beheading (though all be-headings were nasty looking), and destroying some horrible 'witch', or whatever it really was, some kind of daemon or something, as her magical know-how was lacking, so she was thankful that Amy (the previous rat girl) had caught up to her with the help of a thing called a port-key that teleported her to their meet up or half the girls they had with them now would have been dead if not all of them.

It would have been nice that after the little whatever it was was killed that the girls lost their powers so that they could go home, safe and happy, together, but no such thing was going to happen. They had their powers now, so she had to take them under her wing to be their role model. Well she and Amy did, which was bad for the girls as neither of them were exactly the best role models around, but they would have to do as they were the only role models around, until they could safely deliver them to the Covenant, and they could be helpful with their magic.

"It looks like something is seriously wrong!" the blonde girl said in worry. Though, they all had magical powers it didn't mean they weren't still aged fourteen and sixteen as she was the oldest of the five girls, slightly role model-ish for the four fourteen year old girls.

"But Mami!" she whined.

"Shut up, Madoka-chan!" the red head stepped up glaring at her coldly. However, a moment later the brunette of the group had a gun to the red heads chin.

"Kyoko-san?!"

"W-whoa, Homura!" she quickly said shaking her hands and stepping back and the girl removed her gun while still staring at her coldly.

"Umm… Faith-sama, Amy-sama? Will we ever get back to Japan?" the final girl asked. She had short cut blue hair and like the other girls still wore her school uniform since they dropped back from their magical girl outfits, or as Amy said what were actually called, Barrier-Jackets.

"We don't, know, Sayaka," Amy said while frowning. "You might have been transported here from another reality for all we know during that huge battle. You wouldn't be the first girls, since Tara has that Ellie girl from another Earth to look after, but then as role models go, Tara and Willow are both too 'goodie-two-shoes'."

"And you guys are not quite that good?" Kyoko asked while smirking smugly.

"Not quite," Faith said with a small smile, "but wait until you meet Shado someday and you'll never understand whether she is good or bad, or whatever. But she would likely go through a hell dimension for her friends and family. The horrible thought is, she would likely come back stronger than ever with the devil herself on a leash."

"She's the one who sent you here to find these Guardians?" Mami asked while frowning as Faith nodded in agreement. "I see, so she is a very important and powerful person?" she asked while they nodded. "I see, but I don't see how this isn't our world. It would be more likely that we were transported through space rather than reality. Could this Queen of the Covenant get us back to Japan so that we could be certain?"

"But maybe this is a blessing?" Amy said, starling them all. "I mean sure, Shado could pay for you to all get home, but think about it? The things you could learn. The people you could protect, if given the funding, and the support… the training. You guys have some pretty powerful abilities. If you used them to help people, to help save the world…" she shrugged as she looked away.

"I…" Faith continued slowly. "I was chosen by a great mystical power to be a Slayer, so that I could protect people with my strength. I loved this girl who had her own problems she couldn't deal with me. I understand that now. She had so many problems she couldn't let me down gently, or consider being with me; I just added to her burden. And with that I grew bitter, jealous, and did things that I regret to get her attention.

"I think she regrets how she acted too, but while she continued to destroy daemons, I went bad, and I accidentally killed a human. I understand now that it was an accident, but he worked with a big-bad, so he made his bed. But that sent me on a dark spiral, and I lost my mind and hurt the person I loved through my own self-loathing and jealousy. I understand now that I was a bitch, and that I had all this power…-"

"You should have used that power for the people you were supposed to protect from the monsters?" Sayaka interrupted as Faith looked like she lost her thought. She felt bad just saying that as any one of them could lose it and do stupid things, and it didn't take the observant to notice Homura squirming uncomfortably as she had been messing with time, which seemed to be a moot point now as she supposedly lost that ability once her wish was granted and she had finally saved Madoka.

Faith nodded, "yeah, looking back now, I wanted support, and protection. I wanted to be loved. My childhood wasn't very nice… and I was wrong. And though I don't know Shado very well, I know that she wants to do good in the world even if she has to be tough and hard. But she can't do that without strong people like us to stand up with her against the oppressors of this world."

"Then we have a lot to think about," Homura said, leading her group on they followed behind while she tried to understand how the timeline had changed so drastically with one movement, one change, she didn't understand, who could she talk to about her secrets. She looked to the pink haired girl, the girl she loved more than anyone as she skipped to catch up with her. She was alive, and their threat had passed.

Homura reached out, surprising Madoka as she took her left hand in her right, looking forward she wouldn't look into her friends beautiful eyes through fear of letting go. After a few moments of shock Madoka's hand grasped and tightened around Homura's, holding on tightly as she smiled at her friend and protector, wondering about this new future for them her friend had somehow created.

It didn't take them long to find a barrier into the city. It was a blockade of police cars and other vehicles. There were men and woman of all ages carrying weapons from blades to guns. They were stopped at gun point.

"No one has just walked through the barrier, no one can!" the leader demanded. He was an older man with light brown hair and slightly plumper than healthy. "Who are you and how did you get through from the…-"

"Vampires, captain!"

They were startled as the darkness had crept up on them with twilight. They hadn't realised it was getting that dark.

"Does she mean as in blood drinking soulless monsters?" Kyoto asked hopefully as a wicked grin stretched to her lips while the man nodded in confusion before shielding his eyes as she flashed a bright red before she was standing wearing a crimson top mid-thigh with white ruffled trim cut down the front from mid-stomach with black top underneath attached to a pink skirt. She had black thigh high socks and red shin high boots with white to black sleeves and black ribbon holding her ponytail back and red gem on her chest.

She held a yellow pole with silver blades at each end. She span her lance while a grin stretched to her lips and brownie red eyes alight at the prospect of a fight. "I can't wait. I can kill them, right Faith? They can't be helped, right?"

"Go wild!" she agreed as the girl turned to the charging bumpy-faced vampires and jumped up shooting over the shocked boarder-'keepers' and the several attacking vampires never stood a chance as she sliced them all into dust.

"Your friend has some serious issues," Amy said while the girls all nodded slowly.

"S-she is like… the Guardians?" the man asked in awe. "So… you're here to help them, before it's too late and everyone perishes?" he asked looking to Faith and Amy as they were the oldest.

"Yeah, we're here to help!" Amy chose to say rather than telling them that they just got lucky, it made them feel more secure if they believed they were more organised.

Elsewhere, Will crashed into the ground as a daemon smacked her down while she was in Guardian mode with pixy-like wings, wearing green and pink with miniskirt. Her crimson hair was covered in sweat and dirt as her green eyes glared up at the horse monster thing that she had been fighting. They weren't as strong as her, but she had fought so many over the past week she was losing strength, and even resting at Hay Lin's place during the day wasn't enough to get their strength up, and that wasn't mentioning the vampires and other assorted evil, and they didn't know where that giant daemon had gone.

She looked up with wide eyes as a horse daemon monster charged at her, flapping its wings, claws reaching out for her when suddenly there was a black handgun on its head just as it was a metre away from ripping Will apart, and in a boom its brains had been splayed out and it crashed to her side.

Will scrambled to her knees as she watched the girl in white black and purple with long black tights as her gun was gone and replaced by a bow. She pulled back the string, and over and over again it materialised an arrow and vaporised horse daemon things.

"Let's go!" Homura ordered, helping Will to her feet. "We have to regroup and amass our strength before these things completely destroy the town!"

"Oh, right!" Will agreed as she had some blood on her lips and was battered, shooting some kind of white electricity as a horse daemon while she followed her new ally, keeping to the back alleys where they met up with a pink haired girl wearing a pouffe pink dress while carrying a magical staff.

"Are you two okay?" she asked in worry.

"I'm okay, thank you!" Will agreed when she turned as she grimaced as the brunette had lost the magical bow and held a huge long barrelled Gatling gun to each hip, firing at flying daemons, shooting them down.

"Umm…" Will mumbled. "Your friend has a serious arsenal of weapons!" she stated the obvious because she couldn't think of anything else to say. It was awesome. She didn't think any magical wielding girl would opt for huge guns to smite her enemies with, and this one was no older than her.

"Y-yeah, she does," Madoka agreed nervously, "but I love everything about her!"

"Madoka-chan, Guardian Girl-."

"Will!"

"-Will, let's get out of here. Mami should have led the others to the other Guardians just fine, there are more of them. We have to leave, right now. It seems these things only come out at night. If we can hold them off till morning we can at least gather our strength and forces and coordinate better."

"That's true!" Will said worriedly as she led her new friends through the back allies. "But we can't leave the town and all communication out doesn't work. I was with my team earlier, but we got separated just before night fell. I hope they're okay!"

"They'll be fine!" Madoka said uncertainly, "Faith and Amy are organising the mortals, and Faith is a Slayer, and Amy is a magician. They're trying to set up a magical comm. so that we can hopefully call for help."

"We've been trying to contact Meridian, but we can't get through! We can't even open a gate to evacuate the town!" Will said as they slid through a narrow alley. "If we can contact Queen Elyon of Meridian we can get reinforcements through the veil and get the defenceless out of Heatherfield!"

"The veil?" they both asked.

"Heatherfield is the entrance to another world, which is hidden by a veil," she said in a hurry, "I don't get how it works, just that it does. It's all kind of magic and confusing!"

"Then we have to get back to Faith and Amy!" Homura commanded coolly. "We have to give them all the information they may need while they try to contact Queen Shado, or the other Slayer and her witches…-"

"Wait, Queen Shado?" Will asked as she followed the girls, sneaking through the streets back allies.

"Queen of the Covenant of Witches!" Madoka said quickly while they snuck out to the edge of buildings where gunfire flew into the air along with magic and the remaining Guardians were with the remainder of Madoka's team, protecting innocent people while they evacuated the area and some kind of giant dinosaur was rampaging through the city and no one could stop it.

"NO! MUM!" Will suddenly yelled out in horror as she looked over to see her mother fleeing with other civilians and before the other two could say anything, or try to stop her she blast off, moving faster than she ever had, and stopping a moment later in the way of the monster and her mother. "Get the fuck away!" she roared out, having never been big on cussing it was a first for her friends or mother to hear her actually swear.

Will's eyes lit up as she lost herself in her power and she tore it apart before knocking her mother and the over civilians down as she shot off with a sonic boom. She was alight with blue sparks and her outfit had changed. She no longer had the same wings she did. They were now like a cape of transparent energy, gliding open. She was wearing a long navy blue coat to her ankles. It was thin, and open attached to the black of her short shorts and top that curved with her chest. She wore black half boots and fingerless gloves, and in her previous form she looked more like a junior in high school (whereas she was still a junior in middle school), she now looked more like a high school senior.

"What the hell happened to Will?" her best friend Irma asked as she landed with Madoka and Homura.

"Don't ask us… it's her power!" Homura said in awe as Will started destroying horse daemon after horse daemon like a girl possessed, in a raging temper with white laser-like beams from her hands, tearing through their ranks.

On the ground Will's mother watched as her baby girl wasn't such a baby any more as she ripped into her enemy. It was nice that her baby was well and good, but now she worried more, but that did explain all of the secrets and lies if her daughter was a secret superhero; she almost fainted thinking about it.

But ultimately she couldn't have been any prouder.

Homura moved quickly to Faith and Amy where they were trying to set up some magical communications. "Heatherfield is sitting on top of some kind of gate to another world called Meridian. These Guardians seem to be on good terms with the queen. If you cannot contact the Covenant, contact Meridian!"

"Good call!" Amy agreed.

Meanwhile a cute blonde girl with her hair tied into a plat was board sitting on her throne doing nothing, thinking of her friends and how much she missed her human friends, and TV, wondering whether they could at least create a broadcast network to modernise the place, and have TV when a ripple burst open in front of her, and she perked up as two black haired young woman appeared in the ripple.

"I expected the queen to have been older!" Faith said.

"Shado isn't much older than her!" Amy replied smugly.

"Good point!" Faith agreed turning back to the young queen. "You are Elyon, right?" Faith asked while the blonde girl nodded slowly, confused. "Good, right, we're in Heatherfield using sorcery to communicate. The city is over run with demons and we need to evacuate the civilians somewhere!"

Elyon's eyes widened in horror as she remembered the Earth was also her home, and the Earth had protected her, so it was time Meridian protected some humans.

"Very well!" she quickly agreed as she saw some Guardians and some other girls in the background fighting out in the open, and Will had seemingly transcended her power. "I shall try to tear open the veil big enough to get all of the humans out of the city, but it may take an hour or two!"

"Thanks!"

In Manhattan, Glory was resting on the couch flipping through the news channels. Nothing mentioned a daemon or alien, so she took that as a good sign, but she didn't like the thought of these Men in Black her new ward had told her about. She wasn't sure she was ready to give up the comfort and love of her adorable charge, but she knew that was what was right. She had to get the girl home to her family.

"Miss. Glory, I'm finished with the shower!" The blue skinned girl called as she exited a room to the side of the lounge of their apartment with a white towel wrapped around her hair and a matching bathrobe to hide her cute little body and helping her dry.

"Tallee!" she said smiling softly at the girl and patting the spot next to her.

Tallee didn't hesitate as she claimed her spot and snuggled up to the ex-hell-goddesses side, warm and content. It had been a shocker that her saviour was a former evil god, but she had seen enough weird stuff that when she was shown magic that she couldn't not believe. It made her wonder whether there were people from her planet that could perform magic too.

Glory smiled at her Tallee and cuddled the girl as she enjoyed the comfort as much as the girl did, and she smelt really nice after her shower. "If we go to these… Men in Black, would they get you home?" she asked as she had kept the girl for long enough she knew that it was the right thing, to get her home.

"Oh, yes, yes they would Miss. Glory!" she readily agreed, "but-but I wouldn't want to leave you all alone."

Glory couldn't help but kiss the girls head as she was falling in love and didn't know whether she liked the feeling or not yet. But it seemed to make it harder for her not to be selfish as she realised that love was a hard emotion attached to so many others, but ultimately, she wanted what was best for her girl.

"Let's get you home," she said. "You can always return after you're older and look me up… well if you can find me!"

"A-are you sure? I don't think M.I.B. deal with demonic things. That's probably out of their derestriction," she said sheepishly.

"Then let's just leave that bit out shall we?" she asked with a slight laugh when she suddenly moved as the door exploded down, grabbing Tallee and moving her back and away as she grabbed her gun from the open kitchen sideboard, flipping the safety off she aimed it just as several men wearing green military uniforms burst in with automatic weapons trained on them.

Glory hated the man as soon as he walked in. He was a smug bastard wearing a suit. From what she understood of the M.I.B, she would know the moment they drew a weapon who they were as they used advanced alien technology, and reversed engineered weapons, but had a calm and nondescript way of doing things.

These men held normal mortal weapons that she could buy quite easily, as her fake ID was some of the best, and she wasn't a recorded criminal in the mortal world, which was why she stayed clear of the Empire State Building, as MACUSA held their Headquarters there, and worse, the Gods above, and it seemed that the MIB were threat enough that monsters and demons barely 'played' within Manhattan, thankfully, and all three 'entities' likely had no interest in bothering the other, and the wizarding world tended to ignore the nomaj as best they could, so felt safest from them.

These people were not M.I.B. though, as they would also be more discreet, and would have knocked on the door as normal cops would have unless they knew what she was. It was just a matter of who they were hunting, Glory or her ward, but if it wasn't her ward, they sure would be now if they were demon hunters looking at her they wouldn't make a distinction between alien and demon.

"Oh my, the blonde woman has balls!" the man in the suit commented laughingly. "Now just step aside and relinquish custody of that thing and we'll leave you in peace."

Glory snorted rudely. "No. You leave our apartment. Leave the city, and go and fuck yourselves and I won't put you all down!"

"Don't be foolish girl!" the man ordered coldly sneering at the blue skinned child. "We just want the alien!"

"Yeah, well… not going… too…" she trailed off as he started barking out his laugh, growling as his skin turned a rotten grey and he grew fangs within his mouth.

"I wouldn't have had to devour her if her father hadn't been killed by those foolish humans… he went bad… well not today anyway. She's so rare, maybe the last of her species as mine has finally made the delicious morsels a feast to remember. Your world will be next, but we didn't want humans to start disappearing too much just yet or we might have to deal with the M.I.B too soon!"

Glory looked back at Tallee as the girl had tears pouring from her eyes while she shook in horror before she turned back, raging. The feeling in her chest felt terrible. This was what it was like, to find out so many innocent people had been killed. To feel sympathy. To feel such a deep love for someone she felt their pain.

Her young wards whole planet had become one huge table for a superior race. She wouldn't let this monster get away with hurting her ward, and she would teach young Tallee, make her stronger, teach her magic, so that one day she could get her revenge and justice.

"News flash bastard!" Glory hissed. "I'm not quite human!" she spat out and she moved faster than a normal slayer would in her rage. She had so much adrenaline pumping through her veins making her stronger. The man/thing watched as she broke all of his men, ripping them apart, proving her superior strength and giving in to her slayer instinct. She was dripping in blue blood as she stalked her final prey with cold stormy eyes.

He stepped back, eyes wide, frantic with horror. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. She wasn't the prey; he was.

"I am not prey by design!" she snarled as if reading his thoughts while he ran out of places to move back to, his back hit the wall. Neither herself as a hell-god or a slayer were prey; they were killers. They remorselessly killed whether good or evil. It was just now she knew how it was to be inferior, she knew she could protect her young ward, just like Buffy would have, just like Shado would have. They would have put the fear of the Earth into them, as she would this monster.

The man had no choice and attacked. However, it took less than a moment for him to lose his head as she tore it clean from his neck just as two women burst in through the broken open door; a young black woman with short puffy afro-like black hair, and a white woman, older with her greying black hair tied up in a tight knot. They were both wearing expensive black suits carrying silver guns with blue glowing strips to each side. The grey man's head rolled to the floor with horror written in its dying expression, stopping by their feet.

"Oh, Tallee," Glory whimpered a moment later as she turned to her beautiful girl. Her baby-girl was sobbing in her arms moments later while she cuddled her for all she was worth without hurting her.

"K?" the black woman asked as she felt terrible for the girl as they had been listening in before they decided to interfere. It was just a shocker that the blonde woman wasn't all talk, and that she was a dangerous person, not to be trifled with, and she protected the blue skinned cutie.

The older woman said nothing as she pulled out a comm. device and an older man appeared on the screen, "the Gredamechs have committed mass genocide on the planet Segeryarna just as reported by our network. They plan to devour our planet next."

"On it!" the man on the line said. "We'll have them rounded up and deported straight away! What about the girl?"

"She'll be okay!" she said watching the two with a small sad smile as that child was lucky to have found someone to look out for her. "I think I will take that vacation. I think I've found myself a replacement!"

Glory looked to her from where she was comforting her girl.

"Let's go!" K said before looking to the black woman, "J, have their belongings brought to HQ would you," she said before Glory wrapped her charge with her coat, lifted her as she continued sobbing, and carried her after this, K.

"Ah man, I don't want a new partner!" J complained but she did have to admire that girl's kickassitude, as she didn't even use her gun. "That is one hot blonde you do not want to piss off! Though, I think I might like having her for a partner. I guess-well she can't be any worse than K-," she finished off just as the clean-up crew arrived.