"Xander, get out of here," said Buffy.
"But—"
"No! If any of those things get past us, you have to help protect the others. Take care of Dawn."
Xander stood for a moment, and then nodded at her. "You know it." He started to run back up toward the tents, with Dawn's sword still in his hand. He barely broke his stride to stoop to pick up his own favoured axe as he passed.
"Don't let her or Giles come down here either!" Buffy called after him. "You guys have to look out for Willow!"
Jack and Sam were loading fresh magazines into their guns. Daniel had replaced his bug zapper with one of the automatic weapons too. Jack looked at Buffy. "You should get out of here too, Miss Summers." He placed a pair of clear plastic safety glasses over his eyes.
Buffy twirled the Scythe, making it whistle through the air. "I'm staying."
"I don't know what you think you can do with that thing."
"Then I guess I'll get to surprise you."
Jack didn't know what to do with Buffy. He pulled another zat out of their weapons bag, and was tempted to use it on her and then call down Doug and Charlie to drag her back up to the camp, but from the way she was looking at him, he wasn't sure even that would work. She'd moved pretty fast with that thing before, she could obviously take care of herself. He shoved the zat under his jacket. "Just stay out of our way," he growled. "I'd hate to shoot you by accident."
SG-1 fanned out in an arc around the slab, about ten yards back from it, with their backs to the camp. Jack and Teal'c took the flanks, with Jack on the left, and Sam and Daniel in the center.
Buffy took a position between Sam and Daniel, and nodded toward Jack. "Is he always this grouchy before a fight?" she asked Sam.
"It really would be best if you let us handle this, Buffy," said Sam. "We know what we're doing."
"The Initiative thought they knew what they were doing too," said Buffy. "Thirty-five of them ended up dead."
"What is this Initiative thing you keep talking about?" asked Jack.
"You really don't know?" asked Buffy.
"We really don't," said Daniel.
"They're a military group that's supposed to deal with the 'hostile sub-terrestrials,'" said Buffy.
"Sub-terrestrials?" asked Jack.
"Yeah, like these spiders," said Buffy. She saw the incredulous looks on their faces. "What do you think these are?"
Whatever answer any of them might have been thinking of giving her was cut off by the noise of something hitting the bottom of the slab. It surged up a few inches before it fell back again.
"Let's sort that out after we've killed them," said Jack.
"Good call," said Buffy. The slab surged upward again, and this time a pair of large legs came out. The slab fell back onto them, but it didn't seem to do any damage to them. The legs scrabbled at the ground, pulling the head of the creature behind them out of the hole. The smaller spiders started to boil forth too, coming out through the gap held open by the legs.
SG-1 opened fire. Buffy had to admit to herself that their weapons were effective against the little spiders. They splattered into clouds of blue and purple goo whenever they were hit by a bullet. Teal'c's staff wasn't even leaving goo behind when it hit one of them.
Jack, Sam and Daniel all had their weapons in single shot mode, but that hardly slowed their rate of fire. All three of them were squeezing off aimed shots as quickly as they could. Teal'c's staff was having a devastating effect, each blast killing multiple bugs. Buffy noticed that he wasn't directing any fire toward the thing trying to claw its way out of the hole, and wondered why for a moment, but she soon realized that one poorly aimed blast could shatter the slab, and the creature was acting rather like a cork in a bottle, keeping most of the smaller spiders trapped behind it. Teal'c didn't want to risk letting all of the spiders free if his attempt to kill the big one left the hole completely open, and unblockable.
Buffy was starting to hope that she really would turn out to be a fifth wheel in this fight, but then Sam stopped shooting. "Reloading!" she called. The others started to spread out their fire, covering Sam's sector while she swapped in a new magazine. The reduction in fire allowed some of the spiders to get clear from the hole. One of them was coming straight for Sam. Daniel tried to shoot it, but he missed, and the bug was inside their arc, where they couldn't fire on it without risking hitting each other.
Buffy stepped in front of Sam, and the Scythe sliced the bug in two. "Down!" called Sam, and Buffy dropped to her knees. Sam started to fire again, over her head.
Buffy rolled clear of Sam's line of fire, and came back to her feet. Daniel was the next to have to reload, and while none of the spiders came close while he was doing so, Buffy saw that several of them escaped from the vicinity of the hole, disappearing over a bank of dirt dug up from the excavation.
"I'm taking your left!" called Buffy as she ran around behind Jack. She saw four spiders that had gotten clear of their killing zone, and went after them. She made short work of them with the Scythe.
Buffy looked around. She saw that more of the spiders were escaping, off to the right. She could run around behind Jack and his people, but by the time she got there, some, or all, of the spiders might have gotten away. She considered the accuracy of the fire that they were laying down, and decided she could risk it. "Coming through!" she yelled.
Jack cursed when he realized what Buffy was planning to do. If they survived this, he swore to himself that he'd throttle the girl personally. He saw Buffy start to run, and was thankful that she wouldn't be in his field of fire for long.
It turned out that she never really entered his field of fire at all. She didn't run through it, she jumped over it, with a leap that would have shattered both the Olympic long, and high jump records at once. When she landed she was completely clear of their field of fire, on Teal'c's side of the arc, where she went to work, hunting down and killing more of the spiders that had gotten away from the hole.
Jack knew that they couldn't keep this up much longer. He was on his third magazine, and he only had two left. And then things got worse.
The giant spider heaved itself upward again, pulling more of its body out of the hole before it got stuck again. This caused two things to happen. First of all, its body was jammed so tightly in the hole that, for the moment, none of the little spiders were getting out. Jack thought that that was a good thing. Unfortunately it had also pushed the stone lid open so far that it fell back on the far side of the tunnel entrance. If the big bug got free now, there would be nothing stopping the little ones.
"Teal'c! Kill it!" yelled Jack. He flipped his P90 into fully automatic, and sent a burst of fire at the beast himself.
His bullets seemed to just bounce off the thing. Blasts from Teal'c staff hit it, and they seemed to do little more than enrage it. Jack pulled out his zat, and shot it several times. The creature didn't even seem to notice.
The giant spider heaved again, and there was a horrible squelching noise as it pulled its body free from the tunnel entrance. It was followed by a flood of hundreds of the smaller spiders, spilling out of the hole behind it. All of SG-1 poured fire into them, but Jack knew it was hopeless. They couldn't keep this up. His P90 clicked on an empty chamber.
"Cover me!" shouted Buffy. Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing. His hands kept going through the automatic motions of reloading his weapon while he watched her run toward the spiders.
A blast from Teal'c's staff cut a swath through the bugs ahead of her. Sam and Daniel shifted their fire, shooting everything near her. Jack swore as he finished reloading, and joined his fire with theirs. He saw where she was going, and knew what she planned to do. He didn't think it was possible though.
Meanwhile Teal'c had switched his fire to the giant spider, since his staff seemed to be the only weapon they had that it even noticed. He directed shots at its head, its body, its legs, trying to find a place where it was vulnerable. He wasn't having any luck. It rose up on its eight, three meter long legs, each as thick as a tree trunk, and started to move toward him.
Buffy reached the slab that had been covering the tunnel entrance. She swept it clear of spiders with a single swing of her axe. She spun around, close to the ground, with her axe fully extended, and she was suddenly crouching in the middle of an area that was completely clear of bugs. Fire from SG-1 worked to keep it that way while Buffy grabbed the edge of the granite slab, and lifted it. Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing. It had taken five men with a block and tackle to raise the lid off the tunnel entrance, and now, here was Buffy, doing the same thing all on her own. He couldn't believe it, but he was seeing it all the same. Buffy lifted the lid, and pushed it forward, past its balance point, until it crashed back down, sealing the tunnel closed.
Buffy grabbed the Scythe and scrambled clear. Even with it closed, the area surrounding the tunnel entrance still had the greatest concentration of spiders. She turned her attention to the next big problem, and it was a big problem. The giant spider was about ten feet tall, and had a leg span of twice that. She couldn't believe that it had managed to squeeze its body through the opening of the tunnel entrance. She had already seen that most of the weapons that Jack's people had did nothing to it. Teal'c's staff seemed to sting it, which was probably why the spider was moving toward him. It didn't look like it was moving very fast, but with each step it took covering about six feet, that look was deceptive. Teal'c was backing away as he kept firing, looking for a place that was vulnerable.
Buffy could only hope that she would fare better with the Scythe as she ran up behind the creature.
'She's insane!' thought Jack as he watched Buffy run up behind the giant spider with her axe. If their P90s, zats, and Teal'c's staff couldn't stop that thing, what could she hope to do with an axe? He took aim, and started firing at some of the smaller spiders near her. He might as well shoot those as any of the other spiders running around. He watched as she swung her axe at one of the big spider's rear legs.
Buffy swung with all her strength at a joint in the leg in front of her. She felt the Scythe's blade sinking in, but it didn't slice right through it, the way she had hoped. She tried to pull the blade free, but it was jammed in the joint. There was a noise from the spider that she hoped was a cry of pain, and it kicked out its leg. The kick nearly ripped the handle of the Scythe from her hands, as it sent her flying, but she kept her grip on it, and the force of the kick pulled the blade free.
Buffy rolled to her feet, and saw the spider spinning toward her. It seemed to have forgotten about the annoyance of Teal'c and turned its attention to her. At least now she knew she could hurt it.
She stood her ground as the spider closed on her. She could see its mouth opening as it reared up. She could see hundreds of what looked like smaller legs surrounding it, moving in waves of motion, to draw anything close into its maw, She could see that the spider was ready to drop down and grab her with the claws on the ends of its front legs. "God, you are the ugliest thing I have ever seen! And that's saying a lot!"
The spider pounced. Buffy rolled to the side, getting herself clear of one of its legs, and she swung the Scythe at the lowest, smallest, joint in the other. This time she did slice clean through it, but she was caught when the spider kicked out with the stump of its leg, and caught her in the head.
Teal'c had now seen Buffy Summers injure the spider twice, when his own staff seemed to be doing little more than annoying it. He had initially thought that her first blow had done nothing, and that the spider had simply kicked her away, but after it spun to face her, he could see the blue blood flowing from the joint she had struck. And then he saw her slice off the lowest section of one of its front legs, before it struck her, and knocked her flying back several meters. It started toward her again, and he could see that it was limping on the rear leg she had struck. He took careful aim at the joint she had injured, and fired.
The joint exploded, and the spider screamed. It whirled away from Buffy Summers, and came toward him again, but this time it was moving more slowly, with an injured leg on both sides. He directed his fire toward another leg joint, but this time he had no effect. He was surprised to see that Buffy Summers was climbing back to her feet again, after the blow she had taken. She didn't get up as quickly as she had before, but he saw her shake her head, and charge toward the spider again, this time aiming for the next leg from the back. He knew what she was planning. If they could take out all of the legs on one side of its body, the spider would be helpless. The rest of SG-1 seemed to recognise her plan too. They were directing most of their fire toward any of the smaller spiders that came anywhere near Buffy Summers or himself, letting them concentrate on the big one.
Buffy shook the fog from her head, and moved in on another leg, aiming to damage another joint. This was a larger joint than the one she had managed to cut through, so she wasn't expecting to slice the leg right off. She knew she just had to damage it enough to let Teal'c's staff finish the job, so she was ready to wrench the Scythe free as soon as she struck, and leapt clear of the reflexive kick before it came.
With three injured legs the spider was definitely slowing down, and it was developing a major list to its right. It wasn't nearly as fast turning toward Buffy this time, and as it turned, it brought its next leg into range of her Scythe. She sliced into a joint in it too, and the spider collapsed, unable to support itself with only the one front leg remaining intact on that side. It still tried to turn itself toward her, and she backed away, letting it keep coming, swinging itself around so that Teal'c would have clear shots at the injured joints.
Buffy had grown so confident in Jack and the others' ability to shoot the smaller spiders that she had stopped paying any attention to them, and that was her mistake. She didn't notice that as she backed away, circling around the injured spider as it turned, that she had moved into an area where they couldn't protect her, with the big spider down on the ground, blocking them. She realized her error when she felt a stabbing pain in her calf. She looked down and saw one of the little spiders with its fangs in her leg.
Buffy started to swing the Scythe down, planning to slice the bug off her leg, but a jet of orange fire flashed through it before she could connect. The stabbing pain was replaced by searing heat. There was a hole burned through her jeans, and she could see the scorched skin beneath it from the blast from Teal'c's staff that had grazed her. She almost stumbled, but she managed to keep to her feet. She looked toward Teal'c but he had already redirected his attention to the spider's legs. Two more blasts from his staff into the joints she had injured finished the job she had started.
Buffy limped back away from the spider, but it had stopped following her. It lay on the ground, thrashing its legs, seemingly having given up on getting to her, or anyone else. She could see that it was still very much alive though, and she'd seen too many demonic creatures that could regrow parts that had been cut off.
The pain in her leg was fading, and Buffy hoped that it was her adrenaline doing it, but she was afraid that it was the poison. She might not have much time left. She ran forward, and jumped up onto the spider's back, where its head met its thorax, spun the Scythe around in her hands, and drove the stake end of it into the top of the spider's head with all of her strength. The stake penetrated its tough exoskeleton and plunged deep into the spider's head.
The spider screamed, and bucked under her as Buffy twisted the Scythe in its head, trying to churn its innards into soup. She pulled the Scythe out, and drove it in again. The spider fell silent, and stopped moving under her.
Buffy jammed the Scythe into the spider's head a few more times to make sure she'd killed it. She didn't think its brain could be all that big, she'd probably missed it the first couple of times.
She finally rolled down off the spider's back, and her leg nearly gave way when she landed on the ground. She limped a few steps away from it, feeling like the world was spinning around her. And then the ground came up and hit her in the face.
