[Note: Well, I got another idea in my head, maybe this time I'll finish it. The title is a reference, but that's not really all that important. If you get it, it will be amusing, though. In any case, I hope you enjoy this poop I've thrown at you, and any comments whatsoever are always welcome.
Poop, I mean, -DUNOTS]
Color Magic
Episode Zero: Angels
--
"Hurry!"
They were already hurrying.
"Hurry!"
They hurried faster, or at least pretended to.
Willow Rosenberg was not satisfied.
"It's already started!" Shannon shouted over her shoulder, axe already deep into something distasteful.
Willow Rosenberg was anxious. "Get to the middle! We have to find them!"
The red-haired witch closed her eyes for a moment, and her hands shot downwards, a concussive ripple in the air following. All the demons, beasts, horrors, and monsters in the immediate vicinity fell to the ground, temporarily stunned.
"We have to find Angel!"
--
"More!"
Spike turned to see the source of the shout, just in time to duck below a Rukavi demon that came flying at him.
"Your army serves only to amuse me, Wolf, Ram, and Hart! I dine upon their suffering with great relish!"
Making his way to Illyria, Spike called out, "Got any onions to go with that?"
Suddenly, the creatures between them cleared a space, and he could see her turn to him, eyes burning and blue.
"You mock me, halfbreed?" She shouted with barely hidden intensity, "Close your mouth, unless you intend to put it to use helping me!"
Letting himself take on his vampire visage, Spike spotted a number of human members of the hellion army. "All this talk of food... I think I'll go back on my diet, just this once."
As a low chuckle escaped his throat, he could hear Illyria begin to laugh, a hollow, terrible sound, growing in frenzy and hate. "Devour, vampire! Let their blood be your life, and their screams your music! There is no good or evil, here! There is only war!"
And she kept laughing.
--
"Where's the dragon?"
Buffy spun in place, her swing severing the demon's head anyway. "What?"
Standing or a dumpster for a better view, Faith pointed upward, just for a moment. "There was a dragon a second ago! Where'd it go?"
A deep, reptilian roar sounded somewhere, and they knew it was still somewhere.
"Find it and kill it!" Buffy shouted, pointing at faith and a handful of slayers.
And then the roar came again, this time fading into a wet gurgling before dying out entirely.
Buffy shrugged. "Can't argue with results."
Faith sneered, verging on a smile. "I get dibs on the next dragon!" she shouted to anyone who could hear, as she pulled a knife from a black holster.
Suddenly, she caught a flash of white hair bearing down on something's neck.
"No..." she whispered to herself as she jumped down off of the dumpster. "No goddamn way..."
Buffy shot her a questioning look.
"Vi, Cari, you're with me!" Faith shouted, the other slayers joining immediately, "Got something I need to check on."
--
"Do you hear the death knell of your mighty dragon, worms?"
Willow snapped her head to the source of that shout, after just having snapped her head to the source of the dying roar.
"I will hear all of your cries before this night is done!" the voice came again, strong and female and insane and just a little familiar, "Come, look death in the eye!"
Whoever it was, she was on the right side. Making a silent incantation, Willow used a small spell to locate the source of the voice, a beam of light visible only to Willow marking the mysterious woman's position. With one fluid motion, Willow cast a spell she had prepared ahead of time, a wave of fire sweeping in an arc in front of her.
A rank of beasts fell to the ground, screaming as they perished. It worked.
The space between them opened up, and Willow could see the other woman, a slight figure with blue-streaked hair clad in some kind of leather or carapace armor.
Suddenly, the other woman looked at her. "I know not who you are, but your savagery pleases me! Join me and raze this army to the ground in which it belongs!"
"We have to go!" Willow shouted, automatically ignoring the warrior-babble, "We have to find the others!"
The woman sneered. "The white-haired vampire was with me but moments ago! The others are beyond my knowing, or my caring!"
"Wait, what?" Willow exclaimed as she knocked a wave of demons to the ground, "White-haired vampire?"
"Spike is of no concern! Help me, red mage, or begone!"
Willow stood stunned for nearly half a second before an approaching monster was torn in two. The woman held onto the creature, swinging its two halves at others.
"I would rather not your arcanum be lost to me," the woman explained, "Now help me, and bring vengeance for the fallen!"
Willow cleared her head, and began to weave a spell that she had yet to try. "I think you'll like this one," she muttered tot he woman, "It's extra violent-ey."
"For my empire!" The woman used the bumper of a car to smash a few heads open.
Willow struggled to maintain control as magics untamed tried to free themselves from her grasp. Only a little longer...
"For this shell!" A pair of monsters was impaled by the selfsame bumper.
The spell wavered, but remained. The casting finally finished, and a ball of light rushed out of Willow's hands and into the air.
"For Wesley!" the woman screamed at a fevered pitch, backhanding a creature's head so hard that it exploded.
Willow drew a breath as the spell took effect. Knives of light and fire rained down upon the alley they were in, slaughtering tens and dozens of Wolfram and Hart's army. The stench of burning flesh was accompanied by the sounds of sizzling meat and dying cries.
Willow didn't notice any of that.
"Beautiful!" the woman shouted, "A fitting memory for such a man as Wesley! Let us give the same for Angel and Charles!"
"You..." Willow stammered, clearing her head, "You said you didn't know if they were dead..."
The woman smiled at her coldly. "Just in case, then."
--
"An animal!"
Faith kept running, pushing past the creatures, fighting only when there was no other option.
"A bloody animal!"
She had to get there, to the source of that voice. She had to see.
"An animal!" that deep voice came again, pushed up an octave by fury, "Always been an animal! Soul can't take that! Chip can't take that!"
Faith grabbed a pipe set in the wall, swinging over several heads. A flash of white, a swirling coat...
"Nothing can change me, you sons of bitches! I'm William the bloody!"
And there he was, holding a man in a flak jacket by the throat, blood running down his shirt. Suddenly, he leaned down and bit into the man's neck, feeding with such force that a chunk of flesh came with his teeth as he pulled back.
"I'm a bloody animal!"
It was Spike.
"Spike!" she shouted, jump kicking some horrible creature that was approaching, "Where are the others?"
He turned to her, and for a moment, there was a carnal bloodlust in his eyes, the same she saw on vampires she dusted. And then, as his vampire face faded away, the fury faded with it.
"Faith..." he said, cocking his head in confusion, then shaking it, "I don't know! We got separated! I think Angel went to slay the dragon, though!"
Faith smiled, axe-kicking one of the para-military goons. "Sounds like he did it."
"Always did get what he wanted, the spoiled ponce," Spike snarked, "But what the hell are you doing here? Didn't happen to bring an army, did you?"
"Actually," Faith grinned, standing over a now-headless body, "We did."
And then he leapt onto a fire escape, taking a moment away from dirty combat for the first time.
And he saw them.
On both ends of the alley, he could see slayers, dozens of them, plowing through even larger hordes of the Partners' army. On top of an adjoining roof, he spotted Giles cocking a huge rifle on a bipod, taking aim into the throng. A moment later, there was the thunk of heavy arms fire, and an explosion rocked the crowd, downing several creatures.
And it went on, with the army still pouring in from the streets.
"Son of a bitch!" Spike shouted, landing feet first on something hostile, "you weren't kidding!"
"I never kid about kicking ass," she smiled, staking a vampire in tattered chainmail, "You think we'll win?"
"That depends," Spike called to her.
Back to back with him, she asked, "On what?"
And there was a new sound, the sound of assault rifle fire.
"On that," he smiled.
--
They stood on the roof of the Hyperion, huddled together for warmth, protection, and general fear. Below, the battle still raged, but it wasn't theirs any more. It really was a war.
"The bloody national guard..." Spike breathed, "It's like Christmas..."
Faith sneered. "Yeah, but with less fighting. How the hell did they..."
"The council is not entirely disconnected," Giles explained calmly.
Buffy swiveled, twitching imperceptibly as her view swung past Spike, "And you didn't tell us about this, why?"
"It was really only a fifty-fifty chance there was still enough influence left," he answered, pulling his glasses out of his shirt pocket and cleaning them, "All I could do was sow the seeds and, well, hope for the best."
"A good general gives his soldiers hope," Illyria noted, "But a great general gives them purpose."
"Er, I suppose," Giles screwed up his eyebrows, "Who did you say you were again?"
"Illyria," she claimed, gunfire and grunts still echoing from below, "Ruler of this continent, destroyer of souls!"
Willow blinked a couple times. "She always like this?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Spike sighed absently, his gaze on the struggle below.
Willow strode next to him and said, "Yeah, I don't know where they could be, either. None of us saw Angel or Gunn, just the carcass of that dragon."
"I do not fear for Angel," Illyria spat, "He is as vicious a leader as I have seen. We will cross paths with him again."
Spike turned his head slowly, leaning against the raised lip of the roof. "You so optimistic about Charlie?"
Illyria shrugged. "I prefer to think that one so well-formed as that could find safety, but logic points otherwise."
Spike felt a Look on his cheek and turned his gaze to see Willow mouthing the words, "Well formed?" Spike just shrugged and went back to staring at the destruction. The national guard had the advantage in both numbers and armaments, and with the dragon gone, they looked very likely to win.
"I think they must be trained for stuff like this," Faith spoke up, suddenly on the other side of Spike, "I think they can handle it."
"You're right," Buffy ordered, "Let's get out of here."
Giles nodded as she turned to him for support. "Agreed. I don't think we can do much of anything until morning, I'm afraid."
Buffy nodded. "Morning it is, then. We'll find Angel and Gunn, one way or the other."
The rest took a deep breath and stood up straight, still trying not to look at each other. The night was, for the time being, over.
Poop, I mean, -DUNOTS]
Color Magic
Episode Zero: Angels
--
"Hurry!"
They were already hurrying.
"Hurry!"
They hurried faster, or at least pretended to.
Willow Rosenberg was not satisfied.
"It's already started!" Shannon shouted over her shoulder, axe already deep into something distasteful.
Willow Rosenberg was anxious. "Get to the middle! We have to find them!"
The red-haired witch closed her eyes for a moment, and her hands shot downwards, a concussive ripple in the air following. All the demons, beasts, horrors, and monsters in the immediate vicinity fell to the ground, temporarily stunned.
"We have to find Angel!"
--
"More!"
Spike turned to see the source of the shout, just in time to duck below a Rukavi demon that came flying at him.
"Your army serves only to amuse me, Wolf, Ram, and Hart! I dine upon their suffering with great relish!"
Making his way to Illyria, Spike called out, "Got any onions to go with that?"
Suddenly, the creatures between them cleared a space, and he could see her turn to him, eyes burning and blue.
"You mock me, halfbreed?" She shouted with barely hidden intensity, "Close your mouth, unless you intend to put it to use helping me!"
Letting himself take on his vampire visage, Spike spotted a number of human members of the hellion army. "All this talk of food... I think I'll go back on my diet, just this once."
As a low chuckle escaped his throat, he could hear Illyria begin to laugh, a hollow, terrible sound, growing in frenzy and hate. "Devour, vampire! Let their blood be your life, and their screams your music! There is no good or evil, here! There is only war!"
And she kept laughing.
--
"Where's the dragon?"
Buffy spun in place, her swing severing the demon's head anyway. "What?"
Standing or a dumpster for a better view, Faith pointed upward, just for a moment. "There was a dragon a second ago! Where'd it go?"
A deep, reptilian roar sounded somewhere, and they knew it was still somewhere.
"Find it and kill it!" Buffy shouted, pointing at faith and a handful of slayers.
And then the roar came again, this time fading into a wet gurgling before dying out entirely.
Buffy shrugged. "Can't argue with results."
Faith sneered, verging on a smile. "I get dibs on the next dragon!" she shouted to anyone who could hear, as she pulled a knife from a black holster.
Suddenly, she caught a flash of white hair bearing down on something's neck.
"No..." she whispered to herself as she jumped down off of the dumpster. "No goddamn way..."
Buffy shot her a questioning look.
"Vi, Cari, you're with me!" Faith shouted, the other slayers joining immediately, "Got something I need to check on."
--
"Do you hear the death knell of your mighty dragon, worms?"
Willow snapped her head to the source of that shout, after just having snapped her head to the source of the dying roar.
"I will hear all of your cries before this night is done!" the voice came again, strong and female and insane and just a little familiar, "Come, look death in the eye!"
Whoever it was, she was on the right side. Making a silent incantation, Willow used a small spell to locate the source of the voice, a beam of light visible only to Willow marking the mysterious woman's position. With one fluid motion, Willow cast a spell she had prepared ahead of time, a wave of fire sweeping in an arc in front of her.
A rank of beasts fell to the ground, screaming as they perished. It worked.
The space between them opened up, and Willow could see the other woman, a slight figure with blue-streaked hair clad in some kind of leather or carapace armor.
Suddenly, the other woman looked at her. "I know not who you are, but your savagery pleases me! Join me and raze this army to the ground in which it belongs!"
"We have to go!" Willow shouted, automatically ignoring the warrior-babble, "We have to find the others!"
The woman sneered. "The white-haired vampire was with me but moments ago! The others are beyond my knowing, or my caring!"
"Wait, what?" Willow exclaimed as she knocked a wave of demons to the ground, "White-haired vampire?"
"Spike is of no concern! Help me, red mage, or begone!"
Willow stood stunned for nearly half a second before an approaching monster was torn in two. The woman held onto the creature, swinging its two halves at others.
"I would rather not your arcanum be lost to me," the woman explained, "Now help me, and bring vengeance for the fallen!"
Willow cleared her head, and began to weave a spell that she had yet to try. "I think you'll like this one," she muttered tot he woman, "It's extra violent-ey."
"For my empire!" The woman used the bumper of a car to smash a few heads open.
Willow struggled to maintain control as magics untamed tried to free themselves from her grasp. Only a little longer...
"For this shell!" A pair of monsters was impaled by the selfsame bumper.
The spell wavered, but remained. The casting finally finished, and a ball of light rushed out of Willow's hands and into the air.
"For Wesley!" the woman screamed at a fevered pitch, backhanding a creature's head so hard that it exploded.
Willow drew a breath as the spell took effect. Knives of light and fire rained down upon the alley they were in, slaughtering tens and dozens of Wolfram and Hart's army. The stench of burning flesh was accompanied by the sounds of sizzling meat and dying cries.
Willow didn't notice any of that.
"Beautiful!" the woman shouted, "A fitting memory for such a man as Wesley! Let us give the same for Angel and Charles!"
"You..." Willow stammered, clearing her head, "You said you didn't know if they were dead..."
The woman smiled at her coldly. "Just in case, then."
--
"An animal!"
Faith kept running, pushing past the creatures, fighting only when there was no other option.
"A bloody animal!"
She had to get there, to the source of that voice. She had to see.
"An animal!" that deep voice came again, pushed up an octave by fury, "Always been an animal! Soul can't take that! Chip can't take that!"
Faith grabbed a pipe set in the wall, swinging over several heads. A flash of white, a swirling coat...
"Nothing can change me, you sons of bitches! I'm William the bloody!"
And there he was, holding a man in a flak jacket by the throat, blood running down his shirt. Suddenly, he leaned down and bit into the man's neck, feeding with such force that a chunk of flesh came with his teeth as he pulled back.
"I'm a bloody animal!"
It was Spike.
"Spike!" she shouted, jump kicking some horrible creature that was approaching, "Where are the others?"
He turned to her, and for a moment, there was a carnal bloodlust in his eyes, the same she saw on vampires she dusted. And then, as his vampire face faded away, the fury faded with it.
"Faith..." he said, cocking his head in confusion, then shaking it, "I don't know! We got separated! I think Angel went to slay the dragon, though!"
Faith smiled, axe-kicking one of the para-military goons. "Sounds like he did it."
"Always did get what he wanted, the spoiled ponce," Spike snarked, "But what the hell are you doing here? Didn't happen to bring an army, did you?"
"Actually," Faith grinned, standing over a now-headless body, "We did."
And then he leapt onto a fire escape, taking a moment away from dirty combat for the first time.
And he saw them.
On both ends of the alley, he could see slayers, dozens of them, plowing through even larger hordes of the Partners' army. On top of an adjoining roof, he spotted Giles cocking a huge rifle on a bipod, taking aim into the throng. A moment later, there was the thunk of heavy arms fire, and an explosion rocked the crowd, downing several creatures.
And it went on, with the army still pouring in from the streets.
"Son of a bitch!" Spike shouted, landing feet first on something hostile, "you weren't kidding!"
"I never kid about kicking ass," she smiled, staking a vampire in tattered chainmail, "You think we'll win?"
"That depends," Spike called to her.
Back to back with him, she asked, "On what?"
And there was a new sound, the sound of assault rifle fire.
"On that," he smiled.
--
They stood on the roof of the Hyperion, huddled together for warmth, protection, and general fear. Below, the battle still raged, but it wasn't theirs any more. It really was a war.
"The bloody national guard..." Spike breathed, "It's like Christmas..."
Faith sneered. "Yeah, but with less fighting. How the hell did they..."
"The council is not entirely disconnected," Giles explained calmly.
Buffy swiveled, twitching imperceptibly as her view swung past Spike, "And you didn't tell us about this, why?"
"It was really only a fifty-fifty chance there was still enough influence left," he answered, pulling his glasses out of his shirt pocket and cleaning them, "All I could do was sow the seeds and, well, hope for the best."
"A good general gives his soldiers hope," Illyria noted, "But a great general gives them purpose."
"Er, I suppose," Giles screwed up his eyebrows, "Who did you say you were again?"
"Illyria," she claimed, gunfire and grunts still echoing from below, "Ruler of this continent, destroyer of souls!"
Willow blinked a couple times. "She always like this?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Spike sighed absently, his gaze on the struggle below.
Willow strode next to him and said, "Yeah, I don't know where they could be, either. None of us saw Angel or Gunn, just the carcass of that dragon."
"I do not fear for Angel," Illyria spat, "He is as vicious a leader as I have seen. We will cross paths with him again."
Spike turned his head slowly, leaning against the raised lip of the roof. "You so optimistic about Charlie?"
Illyria shrugged. "I prefer to think that one so well-formed as that could find safety, but logic points otherwise."
Spike felt a Look on his cheek and turned his gaze to see Willow mouthing the words, "Well formed?" Spike just shrugged and went back to staring at the destruction. The national guard had the advantage in both numbers and armaments, and with the dragon gone, they looked very likely to win.
"I think they must be trained for stuff like this," Faith spoke up, suddenly on the other side of Spike, "I think they can handle it."
"You're right," Buffy ordered, "Let's get out of here."
Giles nodded as she turned to him for support. "Agreed. I don't think we can do much of anything until morning, I'm afraid."
Buffy nodded. "Morning it is, then. We'll find Angel and Gunn, one way or the other."
The rest took a deep breath and stood up straight, still trying not to look at each other. The night was, for the time being, over.