"Connor." Dawn stood before Connor, clearer than ever. "You're not a very
likable guy. Must you push everyone out of your life? Look at Angel, giving
you everything. He never did make a very good father but in person, he was
whole. Greater than most who are living." Dawn took a step closer to
Connor, a bruise slowly taking hold of her left cheek. "You did this to
me," Dawn accused. She took another step forward, the bruise taking up half
her face now. "I could have died, what would you care? All you cared about
was yourself. You selfish pig," she spat.
"You're not real," Connor finally spoke. "I don't know what you are, but you're not Dawn." Connor's eyes held pain; don't matter how many times he told himself that these people were not real, his heart wouldn't believe him.
"You don't really believe that." Dawn took another step forward, now she was so close to him, he could reach out and touch her. "You know I'm real. You just don't to believe the truth." Dawn's face was completely purple and blue, just like a bruise. She reached out an arm, a bloody one. "You killed me, Connor. You did this, you are the cause for my death." Dawn shrank back and into the shadows then disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Connor lied there, staring into the spot that she once stood. Connor would have realized that a demon was on the other side of his bed, but his mind was too occupied.
Connor turned his head away from the shadows in frustration. Then he jumped at the sight of the demon. "What?" He snapped.
"Time is now." The demon smiled a little, which looked really odd on a thing like that. "You have got to look into Eve's past."
"Why?" Connor asked, his voice held a rude sound, rudder than he had intended.
"Uh, because that's my job, duh. Dude, I didn't ask this, but you are the destroyer and you will be needed someday. The same with Angel and Buffy, and Willow and everyone else caught up in this little hellish place." The demon lifted his hand then brought it down, his index finer nail cut right through the air, ripping the page apart, revealing blackness. The demon grabbed a hold of Connor's wrist, lightly, and stepped into the dark space, sucking Connor with him and disappearing.
Eve walked slowly through the city. She had on her game face, her demon face, the face she had never killed with; but that's a different story. She had to have her demon side out or the other new turned vampires would mistake her for human and start something.
Something was going on with Angel. He wasn't mean often. Something about Eve upset him. Eve was the only vampire that stood a chance against him back in the day. She was always getting in fights with him, but neither of them won in the end. Angel didn't feel safe around Eve, even Eve felt that.
Shane was jogging beside Eve, he had to in order to keep up. Shane was trying to talk to her, but she didn't want to talk. Eve was so good at pushing people away it was unbelievable anyone wanted to talk to her.
Shane and Eve go way back, in fact, they met by fighting. In the beginning, Eve greatly disposed of the Irregulars, they just went round hurting people then. Until of coarse they ran into Eve in a dark alley. Shane was forced, he didn't go hurting people on his own or willing. That's why Eve only respects him and he respects her.
"Eve," Shane began again, breathing fast, and feeling out of breath. "Eve, what happened?" The irregulars hadn't followed them to the warehouse so Shane didn't know about that.
"What?" Eve looked at Shane a bit distracted. Her mind wasn't focused. She was sure there was something wrong, despite there being no sign of the manticore. "Shane, I know how closed minded you gang members can be but have you heard of a manticore?"
Shane totally missed the insult. "Manticore? Nope." Eve knew he hadn't. Manticores were mythical beasts, and Shane was a gang member, and all he needed to know about was humans.
"Well, there's evidence of one here. Around here. It's been killing all month and no human realizes that. I went to Angel for help, well sort of. And I can't depend on him right now, gotta let him cool off; so I ask you now, will you help me?" Eve's eyes never left Shane's.
"Yeah," Shane answered in a heart beat. "I'm there Eve. Wait, you want me to help you look for a manticore?"
"Yeah." Eve turned and looked to her side, as if she had already begun the search. An animal walked out of the bushed in front of Eve and jumped on her. Eve fell back under the pressure and landed hard on the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanatos stood in front of Angel, clearly bored to death. The irregulars were force to return to Angel. Angel didn't mind that, after all they had a case. They needed his help, so they were to get it.
"They'll come after us," Thanatos reminded Angel. "They will find us if we don't anything."
"What do you want us to do? Go there, kill 'em all? Will that make you happy?" Angel went back to scowling.
"I can take you on," Thanatos said, no joke in his voice.
"Sure you can," Angel said dully.
"Stand up," Thanatos ordered.
Angel stood up as he was told, but that's about the only thing he'd obey.
"Now fight me," Thanatos ordered once again. Thanatos swung from the left but Angel blocked that effortlessly. Angel brought his right leg up as if he were to attack but he only blocked a kick from Thanatos. Thanatos began to lay blow after blow on Angel. And Angel in return began to block blow after blow without using any energy. This kid was human, he was no threat.
Thanatos finally made Angel back up a against a wall. But he kept swinging his arms wildly. Thanatos hadn't laid a hit on Angel once. But finally Angel got feat up with it. Angel block two blows and quickly shot out his right leg, catching Thanatos in his midsection and sending him flying back.
Eve flipped the manticore over her head and rolled to her feet. Her face consisted of deep cuts and her arms were filled with scratches. Shane was behind Eve in a second.
"We need weapons," Eve gasped and the manticore whipped around to face her. "Go get Angel," she ordered a heart beat before the manticore tackles her to the ground. Shane takes off running.
Shane pushed the Hyperion door open roughly and ran into the hotel. Thanatos sat a good distance from Angel. But Shane didn't seem to notice the tension in the room, if he did he probably would have brushed it to the side as well.
"Eve's in a fight with a manticore. She's not the winning half," Shane said before anyone could say anything. Not a caring expression took hold of Angel's face.
Shane walked down the steps and over to Angel. "Angel, she will die. Come on Angel, she did safe Connor and she did go out of her way to save all of our asses. Well, all of everyone else's." Angel made no notion of rising any time soon. "Come on Angel, she's gonna be dead soon. Fine, I suppose you won't mind me going and getting Connor's help. I'm sure he'll like to help, despite his wounds." Angel's expression changed. "Angel," Shane began but Angel rose.
Eve uses her arms to block her face from the claws. The manticore's face is so close to hers she can feel it's hot breath. It was over powering her, she could lift it off of her and its nails were digging into her wrists. Its weight was crushing her.
Angel and Shane appears behind the manticore. "Give me a knife or something," Angel orders. Shane pulls a rather big knife out of his pocket and hands it to Angel. Angel walks to the manticore then stops and turns. "Get covered." Angel plunges the knife into the manticore's back.
Shane is hiding behind a tree. The manticore lets out a scream and needles fly from it tail, Several hitting Angel and the tree that Shane stood behind. Eve was protected by the manticore and Angel was knocked to the ground.
Angel pulls out a few needles and gets to his feet, dropping the needles on the ground. Angel yanks out the knife and stabs it again. The manticore whips around and stares at Angel, giving Eve enough time to roll out from under it. As Eve climbs to her feet, the manticore tackles Angel.
Connor slips out of his bed and slides out of the room. The halls are deserted. He walks, a bit weakly, down the hall with out being seen. Doyle appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye making him jump back a step.
"Where are you going?" Doyle asked, his accent strong.
"Out," Connor answered awkwardly.
"You can't. You're very sick. Coarse if Angel cared he would be here himself, but he doesn't care, just like that Eve. They don't care about you Connor, if they did, you would already be out, be safe. But no, I've reduced myself enough to come here. I've came to tell you, they don't care, man." Doyle sounded the same as he had when Connor first met him. He sounded the same as he did in all of Angel's memories, but he did not act the same, not at all.
"Get away from me," Connor ordered and walked past Doyle. Doyle slowly faded away.
Angel mustered up enough strength to shove the manticore off. Angel rolled to his feet then took a step back, the full realization of the creature hitting him.
Yeah, sure, a manticore looked like Connor had read. Body of a lion, head of man, tail of Scorpio, spikes and all; but that's not all it had. It had wings from a dragon, 25 feet in length. And not only that but it was the size of a horse and it's body at least five length long. Now thinking of it, Angel couldn't remember how he had shoved a thing like that off; it must have weird at least a ton.
A weird thing about manticores is that it had two rows of teeth, like humans and everything else, but it only had three teeth on each row. And not only that but the teeth were extremely sharp. Angel gave a disgusting look to the creature. Sure, he'd see grosser things, but he didn't have to beat them alone.
The manticore charged at Angel for a second time. Eve came to the conclusion that they wouldn't be able to beat this thing alone. So she decided to stir up some magic. Eve thrust an arm forward, sending the manticore flying a few feet. The Manticore were inches from tackling Angel. Angel's gaze settled on Eve. He hated her helping him.
The manticore's spikes had long since grown back so he set them off. Angel just realized the spikes were made of iron. Angel was able to dodge the ones that came at him. But Eve wasn't fortunate enough. She was struck down by nearly 6 of the spikes that were aimed at her. Eve fell to the ground, feeling the poison flow through her body. The poison wouldn't kill her, of coarse - she's already dead, but it did hurt, hurt more than Angel had revealed when he was hit.
Eve shuddered trying to get to her feet but ending up falling back onto his back. The manticore noticed it's weak prey and ran toward her. Eve realized that too and braced herself for the impact. The only thing she could do now would be to wait for the poison's effect to deactivate. She was too weak to put her powers in active.
Angel threw a dagger at the Manticore, distracting it slightly. With dagger still in it's rib cage, the manticore jumped onto Eve, grinding his weight into Eve, crushing her once again.
Eve let out a cry of pain the stifled her own voice, hiding the pain. Angel jumped into action despite him not liking Eve. He had came to save her, after all. Angel jumped onto the manticore's back, grabbed at one of its wings, trying to stay on.
Angel yanked out the dagger and began to stab it repeatedly. The manticore jerked off of Eve and tried desperately to throw Angel off. But Angel kept hold of its wing and didn't let go. The manticore stamped its paws all around Eve, managing to step heavily onto Eve's arm before Eve could roll away.
Angel stab at it's heart, ignoring the blood that was spraying at him, or the fact that he is ruining good clothes. He kept on stabbing without realizing that the manticore wasn't getting any weaker.
Eve laid against the tree that Shane was by. Shane bent down and attended to Eve. He gently pulled out the remaining iron spikes that rested in her stomach and arm and leg.
"I need a longer weapon!" Angel finally yelled to Shane. Shane's head snapped toward Angel then rose and went around the tree. When he returned he had a sword. Shane tossed it at Angel; Angel caught it. Without a 2nd thought Angel jammed the sword into the manticore's heart.
The manticore fell down heavily, knocking Angel off. Angel rolled onto his knees and stared at the thing. The life had been sucked out of it. In a second all the weight died away and it turned to a corpse then it disappeared all together.
Angel turned from it, not impressed and looked at Eve who hadn't moved. Angel stumbled over to her, patches of blood stained his face, his clothes, his hands were drenched in blood.
Eve slowly shoved herself off the ground, relying on Shane with her weight.
The memory demon shimmered in next to Connor. Connor looked up it and stopped walking. "Where to now?" Connor mumbled.
"More on Eve. Since you still don't get them people. You hate so much people yet you know so little about them." The scene shifted and now Connor and the demon were in a jail that appeared to have been made some time in the 1600s.
"You're not real," Connor finally spoke. "I don't know what you are, but you're not Dawn." Connor's eyes held pain; don't matter how many times he told himself that these people were not real, his heart wouldn't believe him.
"You don't really believe that." Dawn took another step forward, now she was so close to him, he could reach out and touch her. "You know I'm real. You just don't to believe the truth." Dawn's face was completely purple and blue, just like a bruise. She reached out an arm, a bloody one. "You killed me, Connor. You did this, you are the cause for my death." Dawn shrank back and into the shadows then disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Connor lied there, staring into the spot that she once stood. Connor would have realized that a demon was on the other side of his bed, but his mind was too occupied.
Connor turned his head away from the shadows in frustration. Then he jumped at the sight of the demon. "What?" He snapped.
"Time is now." The demon smiled a little, which looked really odd on a thing like that. "You have got to look into Eve's past."
"Why?" Connor asked, his voice held a rude sound, rudder than he had intended.
"Uh, because that's my job, duh. Dude, I didn't ask this, but you are the destroyer and you will be needed someday. The same with Angel and Buffy, and Willow and everyone else caught up in this little hellish place." The demon lifted his hand then brought it down, his index finer nail cut right through the air, ripping the page apart, revealing blackness. The demon grabbed a hold of Connor's wrist, lightly, and stepped into the dark space, sucking Connor with him and disappearing.
Eve walked slowly through the city. She had on her game face, her demon face, the face she had never killed with; but that's a different story. She had to have her demon side out or the other new turned vampires would mistake her for human and start something.
Something was going on with Angel. He wasn't mean often. Something about Eve upset him. Eve was the only vampire that stood a chance against him back in the day. She was always getting in fights with him, but neither of them won in the end. Angel didn't feel safe around Eve, even Eve felt that.
Shane was jogging beside Eve, he had to in order to keep up. Shane was trying to talk to her, but she didn't want to talk. Eve was so good at pushing people away it was unbelievable anyone wanted to talk to her.
Shane and Eve go way back, in fact, they met by fighting. In the beginning, Eve greatly disposed of the Irregulars, they just went round hurting people then. Until of coarse they ran into Eve in a dark alley. Shane was forced, he didn't go hurting people on his own or willing. That's why Eve only respects him and he respects her.
"Eve," Shane began again, breathing fast, and feeling out of breath. "Eve, what happened?" The irregulars hadn't followed them to the warehouse so Shane didn't know about that.
"What?" Eve looked at Shane a bit distracted. Her mind wasn't focused. She was sure there was something wrong, despite there being no sign of the manticore. "Shane, I know how closed minded you gang members can be but have you heard of a manticore?"
Shane totally missed the insult. "Manticore? Nope." Eve knew he hadn't. Manticores were mythical beasts, and Shane was a gang member, and all he needed to know about was humans.
"Well, there's evidence of one here. Around here. It's been killing all month and no human realizes that. I went to Angel for help, well sort of. And I can't depend on him right now, gotta let him cool off; so I ask you now, will you help me?" Eve's eyes never left Shane's.
"Yeah," Shane answered in a heart beat. "I'm there Eve. Wait, you want me to help you look for a manticore?"
"Yeah." Eve turned and looked to her side, as if she had already begun the search. An animal walked out of the bushed in front of Eve and jumped on her. Eve fell back under the pressure and landed hard on the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanatos stood in front of Angel, clearly bored to death. The irregulars were force to return to Angel. Angel didn't mind that, after all they had a case. They needed his help, so they were to get it.
"They'll come after us," Thanatos reminded Angel. "They will find us if we don't anything."
"What do you want us to do? Go there, kill 'em all? Will that make you happy?" Angel went back to scowling.
"I can take you on," Thanatos said, no joke in his voice.
"Sure you can," Angel said dully.
"Stand up," Thanatos ordered.
Angel stood up as he was told, but that's about the only thing he'd obey.
"Now fight me," Thanatos ordered once again. Thanatos swung from the left but Angel blocked that effortlessly. Angel brought his right leg up as if he were to attack but he only blocked a kick from Thanatos. Thanatos began to lay blow after blow on Angel. And Angel in return began to block blow after blow without using any energy. This kid was human, he was no threat.
Thanatos finally made Angel back up a against a wall. But he kept swinging his arms wildly. Thanatos hadn't laid a hit on Angel once. But finally Angel got feat up with it. Angel block two blows and quickly shot out his right leg, catching Thanatos in his midsection and sending him flying back.
Eve flipped the manticore over her head and rolled to her feet. Her face consisted of deep cuts and her arms were filled with scratches. Shane was behind Eve in a second.
"We need weapons," Eve gasped and the manticore whipped around to face her. "Go get Angel," she ordered a heart beat before the manticore tackles her to the ground. Shane takes off running.
Shane pushed the Hyperion door open roughly and ran into the hotel. Thanatos sat a good distance from Angel. But Shane didn't seem to notice the tension in the room, if he did he probably would have brushed it to the side as well.
"Eve's in a fight with a manticore. She's not the winning half," Shane said before anyone could say anything. Not a caring expression took hold of Angel's face.
Shane walked down the steps and over to Angel. "Angel, she will die. Come on Angel, she did safe Connor and she did go out of her way to save all of our asses. Well, all of everyone else's." Angel made no notion of rising any time soon. "Come on Angel, she's gonna be dead soon. Fine, I suppose you won't mind me going and getting Connor's help. I'm sure he'll like to help, despite his wounds." Angel's expression changed. "Angel," Shane began but Angel rose.
Eve uses her arms to block her face from the claws. The manticore's face is so close to hers she can feel it's hot breath. It was over powering her, she could lift it off of her and its nails were digging into her wrists. Its weight was crushing her.
Angel and Shane appears behind the manticore. "Give me a knife or something," Angel orders. Shane pulls a rather big knife out of his pocket and hands it to Angel. Angel walks to the manticore then stops and turns. "Get covered." Angel plunges the knife into the manticore's back.
Shane is hiding behind a tree. The manticore lets out a scream and needles fly from it tail, Several hitting Angel and the tree that Shane stood behind. Eve was protected by the manticore and Angel was knocked to the ground.
Angel pulls out a few needles and gets to his feet, dropping the needles on the ground. Angel yanks out the knife and stabs it again. The manticore whips around and stares at Angel, giving Eve enough time to roll out from under it. As Eve climbs to her feet, the manticore tackles Angel.
Connor slips out of his bed and slides out of the room. The halls are deserted. He walks, a bit weakly, down the hall with out being seen. Doyle appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye making him jump back a step.
"Where are you going?" Doyle asked, his accent strong.
"Out," Connor answered awkwardly.
"You can't. You're very sick. Coarse if Angel cared he would be here himself, but he doesn't care, just like that Eve. They don't care about you Connor, if they did, you would already be out, be safe. But no, I've reduced myself enough to come here. I've came to tell you, they don't care, man." Doyle sounded the same as he had when Connor first met him. He sounded the same as he did in all of Angel's memories, but he did not act the same, not at all.
"Get away from me," Connor ordered and walked past Doyle. Doyle slowly faded away.
Angel mustered up enough strength to shove the manticore off. Angel rolled to his feet then took a step back, the full realization of the creature hitting him.
Yeah, sure, a manticore looked like Connor had read. Body of a lion, head of man, tail of Scorpio, spikes and all; but that's not all it had. It had wings from a dragon, 25 feet in length. And not only that but it was the size of a horse and it's body at least five length long. Now thinking of it, Angel couldn't remember how he had shoved a thing like that off; it must have weird at least a ton.
A weird thing about manticores is that it had two rows of teeth, like humans and everything else, but it only had three teeth on each row. And not only that but the teeth were extremely sharp. Angel gave a disgusting look to the creature. Sure, he'd see grosser things, but he didn't have to beat them alone.
The manticore charged at Angel for a second time. Eve came to the conclusion that they wouldn't be able to beat this thing alone. So she decided to stir up some magic. Eve thrust an arm forward, sending the manticore flying a few feet. The Manticore were inches from tackling Angel. Angel's gaze settled on Eve. He hated her helping him.
The manticore's spikes had long since grown back so he set them off. Angel just realized the spikes were made of iron. Angel was able to dodge the ones that came at him. But Eve wasn't fortunate enough. She was struck down by nearly 6 of the spikes that were aimed at her. Eve fell to the ground, feeling the poison flow through her body. The poison wouldn't kill her, of coarse - she's already dead, but it did hurt, hurt more than Angel had revealed when he was hit.
Eve shuddered trying to get to her feet but ending up falling back onto his back. The manticore noticed it's weak prey and ran toward her. Eve realized that too and braced herself for the impact. The only thing she could do now would be to wait for the poison's effect to deactivate. She was too weak to put her powers in active.
Angel threw a dagger at the Manticore, distracting it slightly. With dagger still in it's rib cage, the manticore jumped onto Eve, grinding his weight into Eve, crushing her once again.
Eve let out a cry of pain the stifled her own voice, hiding the pain. Angel jumped into action despite him not liking Eve. He had came to save her, after all. Angel jumped onto the manticore's back, grabbed at one of its wings, trying to stay on.
Angel yanked out the dagger and began to stab it repeatedly. The manticore jerked off of Eve and tried desperately to throw Angel off. But Angel kept hold of its wing and didn't let go. The manticore stamped its paws all around Eve, managing to step heavily onto Eve's arm before Eve could roll away.
Angel stab at it's heart, ignoring the blood that was spraying at him, or the fact that he is ruining good clothes. He kept on stabbing without realizing that the manticore wasn't getting any weaker.
Eve laid against the tree that Shane was by. Shane bent down and attended to Eve. He gently pulled out the remaining iron spikes that rested in her stomach and arm and leg.
"I need a longer weapon!" Angel finally yelled to Shane. Shane's head snapped toward Angel then rose and went around the tree. When he returned he had a sword. Shane tossed it at Angel; Angel caught it. Without a 2nd thought Angel jammed the sword into the manticore's heart.
The manticore fell down heavily, knocking Angel off. Angel rolled onto his knees and stared at the thing. The life had been sucked out of it. In a second all the weight died away and it turned to a corpse then it disappeared all together.
Angel turned from it, not impressed and looked at Eve who hadn't moved. Angel stumbled over to her, patches of blood stained his face, his clothes, his hands were drenched in blood.
Eve slowly shoved herself off the ground, relying on Shane with her weight.
The memory demon shimmered in next to Connor. Connor looked up it and stopped walking. "Where to now?" Connor mumbled.
"More on Eve. Since you still don't get them people. You hate so much people yet you know so little about them." The scene shifted and now Connor and the demon were in a jail that appeared to have been made some time in the 1600s.