*** 2004 London ***
Dawn could feel the itch spread up along her legs. She winced as she stretched her knees, fighting to get her blood flow running again. She could barely see parts of the battle that had already seemed to go on for hours.
There were over thirty Slayers in the battle, not even counting Buffy and Faith. The principal--Dawn still couldn't get herself to call him Robin--was fighting alongside the dark-haired Slayer. Xander was watching Marissa's back. The girl's green-purple-whatever spikes betrayed her as a Brachen. She didn't even wonder why no one--including her--had been surprised to see Xander end up dating another demon. At least Marissa wasn't trying to kill him. Yet.
Willow, tightly guarded by Kennedy, was weaving some kind of spell, leading the coven into a binding spell that hopefully would stop Skrymir's ritual from opening the London fissure and changing the world into a sea of ice and darkness...
There were seventeen witches in the coven, including Giles. Do you call a male witch a warlock or not? Stupid thought, there's so much more going on, but she wondered about it, actually almost because she didn't really want to think about what was going on...
Spike lashed out, surrounded by a troop of skeletal black demons. They fought in silence, ignoring the resurrected vampire's taunts.
An impressive army, if she could say so, yet no matter how strong they were, no matter how powerful they were together, Dawn knew they were lost. And this time there'd be no mysterious sun amulet brought in at the last moment to save the day.
Well, not on their side, at least.
The huge ice-demon had started the ritual hours ago, starting right before the sun went down. There had been no time to prepare for the demon's arrival. No year long stretch of attacks until the demon finally decided his big day had come to destroy the world. Instead, they'd had a year of eerie silence, preparing the new Council, looking for the newly activated Slayers.
They hadn't known that Skrymir had been searching for artefacts, talismans and general magical artefacts for centuries, they hadn't known how close he'd gotten to achieving his goal. Not until a troop of his demons had attacked her and dragged her here.
Dawn wrestled against her chains, desperate to get out of the circle drawn in the blood of a young Slayer, killed specifically for this sacrifice. She could hear Spike yelling her name, she could see Buffy cut down an ice-demon, that was over five times her size. Willow's voice rang all over the streets, bouncing against the walls as her spell increased in power with every single second.... but it would come too late.
"Hail mary full of grace, the..." Damn how did it go, she could remember four demon languages, read over five human ones, yet she couldn't remember more than one sentence of a prayer her mother had taught her as a child. "Help me."
Walls crumbled inside of her, dams breaking, already weakened by the ritual, awakening something inside of her that should have stayed dormant. She had to get out, away, somewhere else, where there was no Skrymir, no apocalypse, somewhere safe, anywhere... oh god...
A portal opened right in front of her, green energy simmering around it, waving, rolling; she could feel it start pulling on her, on the magic around her, grabbing them all and dragging them in, including her.
Buffy screamed her name, Dawn scratched her fingers in the soil, desperate for something to hang on to. Her fingers bled, itched; Buffy grabbed her hand, she was safe... but she could see her sister getting dragged along as well. Skrymir came running their way, huge wings of ice forming on his back. Spike jumped on top of him, forcing his blade into him over and over again. It didn't seem to help. The demon threw him away, right into the portal. Dawn could feel her sister's grip loosen for a second before it strengthened again. She could hear Buffy whisper his name. Not again, no... But then they were pulled into the portal as well, Skrymir following close behind.
He almost seemed to melt, Frosty the snowman, couldn't take the heat, but the pain quickly overran the fun... She felt pulled in a thousand directions all at once, finally they just fell, falling, forever, till they hit the ground. Her sister right on top of her, still holding on to her.
And all that was left was mind numbing pain.
tbc
