THREE STRIKES
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created.
CHAPTER 19-BATTLE ROYALE AND TROUBLE COPING
The force of the blast not only blew Connor across the lobby but also knocked Wesley and Faith back away from the counter and almost through the wall behind them. Angel recovered quickly from being knocked to the ground by a flying Connor while Groo could only sit up and look around in astonishment before an equally powerful blast erupted from its epicenter at the doors to the garden. Angel was thrown like a rag doll through the air and across the lobby before landing hard against the far wall. Connor though had managed to hold onto enough debris and the remaining corpses so that he stayed where he was, despite feeling like someone was repeatedly pounding on an anvil in his brain. Groo was showered with razor sharp slivers of broken wood, plaster, and glass as he tried his best to cover up. Though Wesley and Faith only got a glancing blow, it was all it took to send them crashing through the double doors that led to Angel's office.
"Connor," Angel shouted with a worried look on his face as he struggled back to his feet and tried to clear away the cloud of dust that had swarmed around him.
"I'm…here," Connor replied softly through gritted teeth as he gingerly picked himself up off of the floor and turned back to look at his father.
"I am here as well," Groo added with a very uncomfortable scowl on his face as he grabbed his axe and picked himself up off of the floor to a kneeling position.
"Ah Angelus…glad to see you still in one piece, to bad you won't be for long," A very smug Penn exclaimed loudly as he slowly sauntered into the ruined lobby and looked around.
"Penn…," Angel growled with a very angry scowl on his face before he slipped into his game face and charged. Penn kept the smug grin on his face as long as he could before Angel got to within two feet of him. Taking Angel by surprise Penn dissolved into a cloud of mist, allowing Angel to careen on straight into a pile of debris.
"Bloody hell…," Wesley cursed with an angry scowl on his face as he picked himself and Faith up off of the floor and pushed away the broken shards of the double doors.
"What the hell was that," Faith growled with an angry look on her face as she and Wesley staggered back out into the lobby.
"No clue…but I think that we," Wesley started to say with a nervous shrug of his shoulders before a sea of Wolfram and Hart guards, armed with everything from swords to baseball bats, rushed into the lobby and charged.
* * * * * *
Gunn only had moments to react as he charged towards the kitchen door. He had to ready himself to either fight and ultimately kill whatever demon or other big bad that was behind the door or bring his frayed nerves and muscles under control and not kill whatever it was that was coming out of the kitchen. Unfortunately for Anne and the other needy teens at the shelter what burst through the kitchen door was anything but tame or friendly. Instead what burst out of the kitchen was a demon that Gunn didn't recognize. The demon was about twice Gunn's size, reminding the street fighter of the demon Deevac that Angel had killed a few years earlier
"Gunn," Anne shouted in pure panic as she and the teens furiously tried to scramble out of the demon's way.
"Anne…stay back," Gunn yelled loudly in reply as he ducked under the demon's first well aimed swing and frantically began to search the surrounding area for any kind of weapon. The shelter director started follow Gunn's orders but didn't move fast enough as the demon was able to grab her by the neck and lift her off of the ground. "Anne," Gunn shouted with a frustrated and scared frown on his face before he grabbed the nearest stool and took a swing at the demon, smashing the stool into the middle of the demon's back. The demon seemed to barely notice the blow as it spun around and backhanded Gunn across his face, sending him flying across the room.
"Gunn," Anne gasped out with a terrified look on her face as she struggled to free herself from the demon's vice-like grip.
With Gunn currently doubled over in a small clump on the floor on the other side of the commons area and all but Anne having quickly fled the demon was pleased with its handiwork. It had been sent by the senior partners of Wolfram and Hart to discern the location of one Lindsey McDonald and if possible retrieve him. The demon's fallback orders were that if Lindsey could not be recovered to kill him and anyone that was found to be in any way giving aid to him. The shelter had been found easily enough after the demon had followed the residual magic trail that Lindsey was still leaving because of his connection to the golem that was currently wearing his face. "Where is he…where is McDonald…," The demon growled with an angry sneer on its face as it pulled an almost tearful Anne up to its face.
"I…I don't…know," Anne managed to gasp out with a pained grimace on her face before the demon didn't like her answer and squeezed harder.
"You're lying…where is he," The demon asked again, this time bringing a clawed hand up to the side of Anne face and slowly tracing a line down the side of her face, blood seeping out the whole way.
"Aah…," Anne cried out through a sea of tears and gritted teeth as her confidence quickly began to evaporate away.
"Let her go," Gunn shouted with a very confidant look on his face as he swung the piece of pipe that he had found after getting knocked across the room by the demon. The demon reacted and tried to turn its body to deflect the blow but Gunn had acted fast enough and aimed his blow well enough that the end of the pipe slammed into the side of the demon's head. The demon howled in both anger and pain as it staggered back from the effects of the blow, heaving a whimpering Anne hard into the wall as it did so. The shelter director slumped to the ground in a heap, blood easily covering the side of her face and a dark bruise already forming on her throat.
* * * * * *
When the first explosion had rocked the Hyperion Kate had been checking to make sure that there were bullets in her gun while Cordelia had been nervously trying her best to hear what was happening through the walls. At the initial jolt caused by the explosion Cordelia tumbled backwards off of a box and nearly fell on top of a startled Arthur and Jocelyn. Kate had been shaken down to her knees as the former detective refused to lose her balance. Oz had tried his best to stay out of the way of the contents of Lorne's drink which had gone flying skyward the instant that the first tremor hit.
"What the hell was that," Kate asked with a very serious and worried frown on her face as she pushed herself back up to her feet and looked around.
"Hate to sound like the little demon that cried wolf but that sounded like an explosion to me," Lorne shouted with a panicked smile on his face as he tried to quickly make sure that the walls were still intact.
"This is not good," Kate mumbled with a nervous and wide eyed look on her face as she cocked her gun and aimed it straight at the door.
"Ya don't say…what was your first clue," Oz interjected with a sarcastic frown on his face as he climbed up the mountain of boxes a bit and retrieved his crossbow.
"Hey wolf boy…you wanna crack jokes or figure out what happened," Kate shouted more as a challenge than as a statement as she glared back over her shoulder at Oz.
"Hey now wait a…," Oz started to reply with an angry and frustrated frown on his face before an almost frantic Jocelyn broke in.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up…," Jocelyn screamed loudly with a terrified and panic-stricken look of terror on her face as she clamped her hands down over her ears and buried her face into Arthur's chest before letting the tears cascade down her cheeks. For a few seconds after Jocelyn's outburst everyone in the room was too shocked and surprised to say anything. But finally Oz managed to get out what almost everyone in the room was feeling.
"What the heck," Oz asked with a bewildered look on his face as he first looked to Cordelia and then to Kate, who only shrugged her shoulders with a slightly confused frown on her face before returning her attention to the door.
"It's all to much for her, the feelings…our feelings, she's an empathy seer remember kiddies, all of our feelings combined with those of our friends out there are hitting her like a firing squad during a game of dodge ball," Lorne replied with a very concerned frown on his face as he set what was left of his drink down and looked sadly at Jocelyn.
"Oh," Oz, Kate, and Cordelia all muttered softly in unison with embarrassed looks on their faces as they stared at the ground before Cordelia found her resolve.
"Well we can't do anything about it right now Lorne, this won't stop until," Cordelia started to say with a very determined look on her face before the second blast silenced her as she was knocked off of her feet and back into a pile of boxes and stack of old newspapers.
"No…," Jocelyn screamed out again almost at the top of her lungs as she seemed to try to further burrow into Arthur's embrace while Kate had to grab hold of the doorknob to keep from falling over.
"What now," Lorne asked with an overwhelmed look of worry on his face as he lifted his gaze up and looked around as some of the barricades that they had erected earlier began to wobble ominously.
"A second explosion…this is not good," Oz replied with a very nervous frown on his face as he leaned back up against an old clothes cabinet to keep himself upright.
"What the hell's going on out there," Kate shouted with a serious and worried look on her face as she tried to stop her heart from racing at the thought of what was actually happening on the other side of the door.
* * * * * *
Almost instantly Wesley and Faith sprang into action with Wesley grabbing an axe on his way around the counter while Faith leapt over the top of it and leveled the nearest Wolfram and Hart guard with a strong kick to his stomach. Angel slipped his game face on before he leapt high into the air, knocking several of the guards off of their feet when he landed. Connor rolled out of the way of a first attack before he spun around, kicking his feet out as he did so, and knocked the feet out from under the guard that was attacking him before he rendered the guard unconscious with a blow to the guards jaw. Groo jabbed the but end of his axe into the stomach of the closest guard to him before he drove his fist into the side of the guards head. Wesley blocked the first guards attack with his axe before he slapped another guard hard on the side of the head with the flat side of his axe, knocking the guard to the floor.
"Are these guys really supposed to be a threat," Faith shouted loudly to be heard about the din as she drew blood from the nose of one of the guards.
"I doubt it…," Angel answered loudly as he grabbed two guards by the head and smashed them together, breaking both men's noses in the process.
"I think that…they're meant to…wear us out," Wesley added with a few punches, elbows, and knees to the stomach and chin thrown in as he stated what Angel and Faith were thinking in the backs of their minds.
"I feel fine," Connor chimed in with a confidant grin on his face as he smacked one of the guards over the head with a softball bat, laughing a bit as he heard the man's skull crack a bit.
"For now…but their strategy is sound unless we can dispatch them quickly enough before we become fatigued," Groo said with a very serious frown on his face as he placed the shaft of his axe behind the head and neck of a guard and then used his arm strength to pull the man's head down before he smashed his knee straight up into the man's chin, most likely knocking out a few teeth.
"Here's my strategy Groo…we kick their asses and then celebrate with a few cold ones at the nearest bar," Faith interjected with an energized smile spread across her face as she leapt up on the wall, to avoid the blade of a sword, before using it almost as a springboard to launch her back into the fray.
"The rest of us can Faith, you and Connor can't," Wesley exclaimed with a very serious frown on his face before he caught a knee to his stomach and doubled over.
"Wesley," Angel shouted with an alarmed look on his face as he caught sight of Wesley going down out of the corner of his eye and rushed to help. Angel got to Wesley's side just as one of the guards was in the midst of swinging a softball bat in hopes of rendering the former watcher unconscious, or worse. "Now that's not nice," Angel quipped with an angry smirk on his face as he reached up and caught the bat halfway through its swing and then laughed at the guards astonished reaction. Wesley recovered quickly enough and grabbed a baseball bat from a fallen guard nearby and jammed the larger end of the bat into the stomach of the guard whose bat Angel had stopped. "Mind if I borrow this for a little bit," Angel asked with a sly grin on his face as he pulled the softball bat away from the guard, as the latter doubled over in pain and clutched at his stomach, before he reared back and swung upward as hard as he could. The guard flying through the air momentarily reminded Wesley of a scene in a movie that he had once been forced to watch, but that scene had included a golf club instead of a softball bat.
"I guess that's strike three," Wesley joked with a confidant grin on his face as he stood up and then quickly found himself fighting back to back with Angel as the remaining guards began to fight wildly, making them easy targets for someone with Angel's years of fighting experience.
"Yeah but it looks like they're going for extra innings," Angel added with an odd grin on his face before he sighed and shook his head.
"Would you two stop it with the one liners and kick their asses already," Faith shouted with an angry look on her face before she jammed her fist into the guard in front of her and turned to help Connor with one of his own.
"Okay mom…," Angel shouted back over his shoulder with a wide grin on his face before a quick kick to the stomach and then hard punch to the jaw took out the guard in front of him.
"Okay honey," Wesley added with a grin of his own before he caught the softball bat of the guard that was attacking him and knocked him out by smashing the handle of the bat straight back into the guards face.
"Okay that's it," Faith shouted with a very angry frown on her face before she knocked out the last remaining guard and tore off after Wesley.
"Whoa Faith…easy…," Angel shouted with a nervous and slightly frightened smile on his face as Wesley kept him in between himself and Faith.
"Wait till I get my hands on you…," Faith growled with an angry scowl on her face as she darted from side to side, trying to get a hold of Wesley, but every time she'd dart to one side Wesley would push Angel to that side.
"Shouldn't we make sure that Jocelyn and the others are all right before we start tearing each other to pieces," Connor asked with a slightly bewildered look on his face as he cocked his head to one side and gazed over at Angel, Wesley, and Faith.
"You're right Connor…Groo, go make sure that they're all right while I call Gunn and check to see if he's had any problems with Lindsey and Elaine," Angel said with a fed up frown on his face before he stepped out from in between Wesley and Faith and walked over to the counter, throwing to the side the softball bat that he had taken from one of the guards as he went. At first Groo and Connor kept their gazes locked onto the failed watcher and rogue slayer, half expecting the two to start arguing, but then tired of watching as the two started to laugh and then hugged each other tightly. "Uh Groo…would you…," Angel asked with a bored and unsure frown on his face as he picked up the phone and started to dial Gunn's cell phone number.
"Oh yes…of course…Connor," Groo replied with a slightly embarrassed smile on his face and shrug of his shoulders before he turned to Connor and nodded his head back towards the fortified room. Connor stood with a confused look on his face for a few moments before returning the nod and following Groo out of the lobby. Angel finished dialing the number and then waited for a few seconds before his brows furrowed and a very serious and concerned look came over his face.
"What is it Angel, what's wrong," Faith asked with a growing look of concern on her face as she stood, with one arm still around Wesley.
"I'm not sure, but the phone never rang…it's as if Gunn turned his off," Angel answered with a slightly confused look on his face as he set the phone back down.
"But why would Gunn turn his phone off…he knew that you would be calling him to check up on Lindsey and Elaine," Wesley asked with a very serious look on his face as he let go of Faith and walked over to stand beside Angel.
"Something tells me that he didn't…I'm getting a sinking feeling that we weren't the only ones to get visitors tonight," Angel replied with a very serious frown on his face before he picked up a discarded axe and headed towards where he had parked his car.
"Go…I'll stay here and hold down the fort," Faith said with a tired yawn as she waved Wesley on after he looked back at her with a look on his face that seemed to be saying that he thought that Angel shouldn't go alone.
"Okay…I love you," Wesley called out with a nervous smile on his face before he picked up one of the downed guards' swords and headed off after Angel.
"Ditto," Faith shouted back as she pushed herself up onto her tiptoes before she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.
END OF CHAPTER 19