Starting Over 15 - Reasons to Fight
"So we're in this demon karaoke bar and this green demon, the owner, a cool guy called Lorne, comes over and asks who's going to sing - Xander looks at Spike, nods and the two of them get up on stage," Xander groaned as Faith paused theatrically.
"So what did they sing?" asked an intrigued looking Buffy.
"I Got You Babe! Their encore - 'It Takes Two'."
Xander glared at the laughing girls flanking him. "I think I preferred it when you were mortal enemies," he muttered. He had thought the beating he'd received the previous night and the agonising healing he'd been forced to endure would have entitled him to some sympathy. He should have known better.
To tune out the sound of the two Slayers embarrassing him, he decided to mentally review Angel's plan of attack, it was a plan with only one virtue that he could see - simplicity. The two vampires were going to take out Glory's main henchman, Doc. The Watchers, Cordy, and the witches would spear-head a diversionary attack on the front of the building, hopefully drawing the attention of Glory's minions. While they.
They had the most difficult and dangerous part of the plan to accomplish. The three of them were sneaking into the back of Glory's mansion through the tunnels that the blueprints that Willow had hacked off the net. He and Buff were going to rescue Gunn and Dawn while Faith was going to use the sword to deal with the hell goddess.
Faith. A sudden stab of fear pierced his heart nearly causing him to stumble. After last night's healing he'd been too exhausted to do anything but sleep with her holding him. What if he never saw her smile or heard her laugh? What if he never got to hold her in his arms, kiss her, or make love to her? What if-.
"You okay boytoy?"
The sound of his girlfriend's concerned voice pulled him out of his reverie. He forced a smile down at her anxious face. "Just worried about my baby."
"Don't be." His girl-friend wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. "You're going to rescue Gunn and Pip and I'm going to kill me a hell goddess, maybe mount her head on our wall. Easy as."
"Interesting decoration," he ran a finger up his girl-friend's face. "You promise?"
"Would I lie to you?" the Slayer grabbed his head and pulled him down into a kiss. After a few seconds tasting her lips, he plunged his tongue into her eagerly waiting mouth, wrapping his tongue around hers. Xander slid his hands under his girl's shirt, onto her taut stomach before slowly moving up to her -.
"Ew! Get a room! Spike said you were bad, but this is like watching a porno!"
Xander reluctantly pulled away from his grinning love and turned to face the blonde. "Way to spoil the moment Buff."
"Yeah B," Faith paused from tucking her shirt in to look towards the other Slayer, "and how do you know about pornos, watch many?"
The blonde's mouth opened then clamped shut. Turning on her heel she marched on muttering under her breath. Faith turned back to him, her eyes innocently wide. "What? Was it something I said?"
* * *
"I.I'm scared."
"Don't be kiddo," Gunn ignored the pain of his possibly broken forearm to pull Dawn close to him. Disregarding the hurt in his battered face, he grinned down at the young teen and ruffled the young girl's hair. "Angel, the crew, and your big sis aren't going to let anything happen to you. Glory is looking at one hell of an ass kicking."
"What do you think happened to Xander?"
He hid a grimace at the girl's worried question. He'd heard the enquiry a number of times since they'd awoken. When Glory's army had dragged him semi-conscious from the Summers house he'd caught a blurred glimpse of the wrecked front room. But no sign of his friend. "I don't know kiddo," he replied finally.
"But the fact he's not here with us, that's not good is it?"
Gunn scowled. What the kid said more or less echoed his own thoughts. "Maybe he ran for it," he suggested weakly. Total bs of course, he'd never seen Xander run when any of them were in trouble. Quite the opposite in fact, the sight of a friend's injury sent his bud into a homicidal rage.
The scornful look Dawn sent him told him that she believed what he'd said about much as he did. He was saved from having to make up any more lies by the sound of their cell door opening and half-a-dozen heavily armed demons walking in. Their leader spoke, his voice a growl. "Time for the sacrifice."
Gunn pushed Dawn behind him and stood. He'd killed three of them the previous night but then he'd been uninjured and armed. "That isn't going to happen," he spoke with a confidence he didn't feel.
"Couldn't agree more," Gunn's heart leapt when he heard a familiar voice behind the demons.
* * *
Angel leaned backwards avoiding the forked tongue by mere inches before grabbing it as it recoiled. His muscles straining under the effort of restraining the tongue, he bellowed at his companion. "Spike now!"
Instantly the bleached blonde vampire surged to his feet with a speed that belied his battered condition and sliced through the protruding tongue with one swing of his knife before thrusting his blade into Doc's throat.
The demon hit the floor with a thud. Grinning slightly, Spike reached into his duster pocket, brought out his silver drinking flask, unfastened it, and poured its contents onto the thrashing body at his feet before pulling out his Zippo and lighting the body.
The screams of the dying demon echoing in their ears, they moved over to the window. Beneath them the Watchers and Cordy were shooting crossbow bolts into the swarming demons while the trio of Wicca bombarded their enemies with a variety of spells. But for every demon that fell another three took their place. "Things not looking good," commented Angel.
"Yeah," Spike agreed as he lit a cigarette. "Don't know why they're bothering with the weapons though. Have the cheerleader talk to them for five minutes they'd soon be running for the hills."
"Well it works with us," Angel replied, "so are we going down to help?"
Spike threw his cigarette onto Doc's still smouldering body before nodding.
"Got nothing better to do."
* * *
Gunn felt a wave of relief at the blonde Slayer's voice. He watched as the demons began to turn back towards the door only for a shotgun blast to tear the two monsters nearest the doorway in half. Even before the two bodies had hit the floor Buffy was amongst the surviving monsters. Her sword flickered sideways decapitating the demon to her right even as she planted a side kick in the ribs of the one to her left lunged at her sending it crashing to the ground. The remaining two lunged at her but she deflected their advance by first side-stepping the nearest one's charge even as her sword flew up to cleave the demon from the left hip to the right shoulder. Then the Slayer leapt into the air and into a roundhouse kick that deposited the remaining demon on the ground with a mighty thud. Upon landing she quickly moved through the room, her sword tearing through the necks of the two demons she'd just knocked down.
"Well it's lucky you turned up, I thought I was going to have get medieval on their asses." Gunn smiled as Dawn ran into her sister's arms. His grin widened as he recognised the shotgun-toting figure lurking in the doorway. "Xander! How in the hell did you get through last night without getting injured?"
His friend grimaced. "I didn't, healing spell."
"Not good?"
"Like being operated on without an anaesthetic," Xander smiled at him. "Good to see you're still breathing." Xander glanced at the blonde. "Buff, I'm going to head off after Faith."
The young man turned to lead only to be stopped by the Slayer grabbing his arms. "Xander -."
"Buff, I owe that bitch some serious payback for last night. And there's no way I'm leaving my girl to face her on her own," Xander's eyes flared and his jaw tightened.
"I wasn't going to stop you, I've learnt that lesson," the Slayer reached upwards and gently kissed Xander on the cheek. "Just be careful. I've only just got you back; I don't want to lose you again."
"Don't worry." After quickly hugging Dawn and nodding at him, his friend marched out of the room.
Gunn chuckled. "If I was you I'd be worried about Glory instead of Xander." He'd seen that cold-eyed stare in Xander's eyes enough times in the past few months to know that whenever his friend got that look carnage and havoc always followed.
* * *
Faith eased the throne room door open and slid inside. Her eyes narrowed at the woman sat on the throne and knew from B's description it had to be Glory. Realising she had no chance of sneaking up on the hell goddess unaware she kicked the door shut. "So you're the bitch who attacked my Xand last night?" she was conscious of how her voice echoed in the cavernous hall. "Time for some serious ass-kicking bitch."
The goddess rose to face her, her gaze coolly arrogant. "Oh, it was your boyfriend I killed last time. He begged most wonderfully."
Faith laughed harshly. "Wrong on both counts. My boy doesn't beg and you didn't kill him."
"Really," the goddess arched an eyebrow. "I'll have to correct that mistake."
"Like hell," Faith drew her sword from the scabbard on her back. "You'll have to go through me first."
"Gladly," the goddess charged forward. Faith ran to meet her but sidestepped at the last second, leaving only the blade behind. Her eyes wide with shock, Glory attempted to stop her head-long rush but was only partially successful, and the edge of Faith's weapon cut a thin furrow across the flat stomach of the hell goddess.
"You've ruined my dress!" Glory screamed, her eyes burning with rage.
Faith coolly licked the goddess' blood off her blade, to her surprise it didn't taste any different from her own when her mom had bloodied her lip or when a vamp got lucky. She smirked at the hell goddess. "Oh I'd say you've got bigger problems, Slayer's got a taste for goddess' blood."
"Taste this!" Glory leapt at her, her hands out-stretched like claws. She dropped to one knee and thrust her sword upwards, hoping to impale Glory on it. This time however her adversary was ready. Twisting away from the blade in mid-jump, the goddess slammed her foot into the Slayer's jaw.
The impact of the blow shattered her jaw and sent her flying into the wall twenty feet behind her. Groaning with pain both from the kick and the shock of her landing, she forced herself upright to meet Glory's advance. Once her rival was in range, Faith swung her blade slicing into Glory's shoulder.
The goddess screamed in pain as the blade ripped its way through her body but Faith's satisfaction was short-lived. A hard right broke her nose and then the punches began to rein in. On the fifth blow, she was dimly aware of her sword falling to the ground and on the eighth she herself fell.
She dazedly heard the goddess' cackling laughter and felt a screaming pain in her scalp as she was lifted by her hair and thrown into the far wall. Even as she spat blood out of her mouth she could hear the goddess' gloating as she crossed the distance between them. "You're a pretty one," she said. "Maybe I'll keep you as a pet."
"Hey bitch leave my girl the hell alone!"
Xander. Faith's heart leapt at her boyfriend's voice even as she heard the boom of his shotgun and the accompanying scream of agony from the goddess as the pellets tore into her. Turning her head, she saw the goddess race over to her boyfriend, knock his gun out of his hand and begin strangling him.
Her body trembling with the agony, Faith began to crawl desperately towards her sword lying at the other side of the room. It seemed miles away but she had to reach it, for her Xander. Eventually she did, after lifting the suddenly impossibly heavy weapon she staggered to her feet and started towards her lover and the goddess choking him, every step taking a seeming age to complete. As soon as she was in range of the oblivious hellgod she raised the blade and spoke, her voice raspy from pain. "Bitch," the goddess began to turn, "told you you'd have to go through me to get to my boy." With a single swing she decapitated Glory. She grinned wearily at Xander and then the world went black.
"So we're in this demon karaoke bar and this green demon, the owner, a cool guy called Lorne, comes over and asks who's going to sing - Xander looks at Spike, nods and the two of them get up on stage," Xander groaned as Faith paused theatrically.
"So what did they sing?" asked an intrigued looking Buffy.
"I Got You Babe! Their encore - 'It Takes Two'."
Xander glared at the laughing girls flanking him. "I think I preferred it when you were mortal enemies," he muttered. He had thought the beating he'd received the previous night and the agonising healing he'd been forced to endure would have entitled him to some sympathy. He should have known better.
To tune out the sound of the two Slayers embarrassing him, he decided to mentally review Angel's plan of attack, it was a plan with only one virtue that he could see - simplicity. The two vampires were going to take out Glory's main henchman, Doc. The Watchers, Cordy, and the witches would spear-head a diversionary attack on the front of the building, hopefully drawing the attention of Glory's minions. While they.
They had the most difficult and dangerous part of the plan to accomplish. The three of them were sneaking into the back of Glory's mansion through the tunnels that the blueprints that Willow had hacked off the net. He and Buff were going to rescue Gunn and Dawn while Faith was going to use the sword to deal with the hell goddess.
Faith. A sudden stab of fear pierced his heart nearly causing him to stumble. After last night's healing he'd been too exhausted to do anything but sleep with her holding him. What if he never saw her smile or heard her laugh? What if he never got to hold her in his arms, kiss her, or make love to her? What if-.
"You okay boytoy?"
The sound of his girlfriend's concerned voice pulled him out of his reverie. He forced a smile down at her anxious face. "Just worried about my baby."
"Don't be." His girl-friend wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. "You're going to rescue Gunn and Pip and I'm going to kill me a hell goddess, maybe mount her head on our wall. Easy as."
"Interesting decoration," he ran a finger up his girl-friend's face. "You promise?"
"Would I lie to you?" the Slayer grabbed his head and pulled him down into a kiss. After a few seconds tasting her lips, he plunged his tongue into her eagerly waiting mouth, wrapping his tongue around hers. Xander slid his hands under his girl's shirt, onto her taut stomach before slowly moving up to her -.
"Ew! Get a room! Spike said you were bad, but this is like watching a porno!"
Xander reluctantly pulled away from his grinning love and turned to face the blonde. "Way to spoil the moment Buff."
"Yeah B," Faith paused from tucking her shirt in to look towards the other Slayer, "and how do you know about pornos, watch many?"
The blonde's mouth opened then clamped shut. Turning on her heel she marched on muttering under her breath. Faith turned back to him, her eyes innocently wide. "What? Was it something I said?"
* * *
"I.I'm scared."
"Don't be kiddo," Gunn ignored the pain of his possibly broken forearm to pull Dawn close to him. Disregarding the hurt in his battered face, he grinned down at the young teen and ruffled the young girl's hair. "Angel, the crew, and your big sis aren't going to let anything happen to you. Glory is looking at one hell of an ass kicking."
"What do you think happened to Xander?"
He hid a grimace at the girl's worried question. He'd heard the enquiry a number of times since they'd awoken. When Glory's army had dragged him semi-conscious from the Summers house he'd caught a blurred glimpse of the wrecked front room. But no sign of his friend. "I don't know kiddo," he replied finally.
"But the fact he's not here with us, that's not good is it?"
Gunn scowled. What the kid said more or less echoed his own thoughts. "Maybe he ran for it," he suggested weakly. Total bs of course, he'd never seen Xander run when any of them were in trouble. Quite the opposite in fact, the sight of a friend's injury sent his bud into a homicidal rage.
The scornful look Dawn sent him told him that she believed what he'd said about much as he did. He was saved from having to make up any more lies by the sound of their cell door opening and half-a-dozen heavily armed demons walking in. Their leader spoke, his voice a growl. "Time for the sacrifice."
Gunn pushed Dawn behind him and stood. He'd killed three of them the previous night but then he'd been uninjured and armed. "That isn't going to happen," he spoke with a confidence he didn't feel.
"Couldn't agree more," Gunn's heart leapt when he heard a familiar voice behind the demons.
* * *
Angel leaned backwards avoiding the forked tongue by mere inches before grabbing it as it recoiled. His muscles straining under the effort of restraining the tongue, he bellowed at his companion. "Spike now!"
Instantly the bleached blonde vampire surged to his feet with a speed that belied his battered condition and sliced through the protruding tongue with one swing of his knife before thrusting his blade into Doc's throat.
The demon hit the floor with a thud. Grinning slightly, Spike reached into his duster pocket, brought out his silver drinking flask, unfastened it, and poured its contents onto the thrashing body at his feet before pulling out his Zippo and lighting the body.
The screams of the dying demon echoing in their ears, they moved over to the window. Beneath them the Watchers and Cordy were shooting crossbow bolts into the swarming demons while the trio of Wicca bombarded their enemies with a variety of spells. But for every demon that fell another three took their place. "Things not looking good," commented Angel.
"Yeah," Spike agreed as he lit a cigarette. "Don't know why they're bothering with the weapons though. Have the cheerleader talk to them for five minutes they'd soon be running for the hills."
"Well it works with us," Angel replied, "so are we going down to help?"
Spike threw his cigarette onto Doc's still smouldering body before nodding.
"Got nothing better to do."
* * *
Gunn felt a wave of relief at the blonde Slayer's voice. He watched as the demons began to turn back towards the door only for a shotgun blast to tear the two monsters nearest the doorway in half. Even before the two bodies had hit the floor Buffy was amongst the surviving monsters. Her sword flickered sideways decapitating the demon to her right even as she planted a side kick in the ribs of the one to her left lunged at her sending it crashing to the ground. The remaining two lunged at her but she deflected their advance by first side-stepping the nearest one's charge even as her sword flew up to cleave the demon from the left hip to the right shoulder. Then the Slayer leapt into the air and into a roundhouse kick that deposited the remaining demon on the ground with a mighty thud. Upon landing she quickly moved through the room, her sword tearing through the necks of the two demons she'd just knocked down.
"Well it's lucky you turned up, I thought I was going to have get medieval on their asses." Gunn smiled as Dawn ran into her sister's arms. His grin widened as he recognised the shotgun-toting figure lurking in the doorway. "Xander! How in the hell did you get through last night without getting injured?"
His friend grimaced. "I didn't, healing spell."
"Not good?"
"Like being operated on without an anaesthetic," Xander smiled at him. "Good to see you're still breathing." Xander glanced at the blonde. "Buff, I'm going to head off after Faith."
The young man turned to lead only to be stopped by the Slayer grabbing his arms. "Xander -."
"Buff, I owe that bitch some serious payback for last night. And there's no way I'm leaving my girl to face her on her own," Xander's eyes flared and his jaw tightened.
"I wasn't going to stop you, I've learnt that lesson," the Slayer reached upwards and gently kissed Xander on the cheek. "Just be careful. I've only just got you back; I don't want to lose you again."
"Don't worry." After quickly hugging Dawn and nodding at him, his friend marched out of the room.
Gunn chuckled. "If I was you I'd be worried about Glory instead of Xander." He'd seen that cold-eyed stare in Xander's eyes enough times in the past few months to know that whenever his friend got that look carnage and havoc always followed.
* * *
Faith eased the throne room door open and slid inside. Her eyes narrowed at the woman sat on the throne and knew from B's description it had to be Glory. Realising she had no chance of sneaking up on the hell goddess unaware she kicked the door shut. "So you're the bitch who attacked my Xand last night?" she was conscious of how her voice echoed in the cavernous hall. "Time for some serious ass-kicking bitch."
The goddess rose to face her, her gaze coolly arrogant. "Oh, it was your boyfriend I killed last time. He begged most wonderfully."
Faith laughed harshly. "Wrong on both counts. My boy doesn't beg and you didn't kill him."
"Really," the goddess arched an eyebrow. "I'll have to correct that mistake."
"Like hell," Faith drew her sword from the scabbard on her back. "You'll have to go through me first."
"Gladly," the goddess charged forward. Faith ran to meet her but sidestepped at the last second, leaving only the blade behind. Her eyes wide with shock, Glory attempted to stop her head-long rush but was only partially successful, and the edge of Faith's weapon cut a thin furrow across the flat stomach of the hell goddess.
"You've ruined my dress!" Glory screamed, her eyes burning with rage.
Faith coolly licked the goddess' blood off her blade, to her surprise it didn't taste any different from her own when her mom had bloodied her lip or when a vamp got lucky. She smirked at the hell goddess. "Oh I'd say you've got bigger problems, Slayer's got a taste for goddess' blood."
"Taste this!" Glory leapt at her, her hands out-stretched like claws. She dropped to one knee and thrust her sword upwards, hoping to impale Glory on it. This time however her adversary was ready. Twisting away from the blade in mid-jump, the goddess slammed her foot into the Slayer's jaw.
The impact of the blow shattered her jaw and sent her flying into the wall twenty feet behind her. Groaning with pain both from the kick and the shock of her landing, she forced herself upright to meet Glory's advance. Once her rival was in range, Faith swung her blade slicing into Glory's shoulder.
The goddess screamed in pain as the blade ripped its way through her body but Faith's satisfaction was short-lived. A hard right broke her nose and then the punches began to rein in. On the fifth blow, she was dimly aware of her sword falling to the ground and on the eighth she herself fell.
She dazedly heard the goddess' cackling laughter and felt a screaming pain in her scalp as she was lifted by her hair and thrown into the far wall. Even as she spat blood out of her mouth she could hear the goddess' gloating as she crossed the distance between them. "You're a pretty one," she said. "Maybe I'll keep you as a pet."
"Hey bitch leave my girl the hell alone!"
Xander. Faith's heart leapt at her boyfriend's voice even as she heard the boom of his shotgun and the accompanying scream of agony from the goddess as the pellets tore into her. Turning her head, she saw the goddess race over to her boyfriend, knock his gun out of his hand and begin strangling him.
Her body trembling with the agony, Faith began to crawl desperately towards her sword lying at the other side of the room. It seemed miles away but she had to reach it, for her Xander. Eventually she did, after lifting the suddenly impossibly heavy weapon she staggered to her feet and started towards her lover and the goddess choking him, every step taking a seeming age to complete. As soon as she was in range of the oblivious hellgod she raised the blade and spoke, her voice raspy from pain. "Bitch," the goddess began to turn, "told you you'd have to go through me to get to my boy." With a single swing she decapitated Glory. She grinned wearily at Xander and then the world went black.