Chapter 6 – The end of a journey and the beginning of another, but for
whom?
AN: Sorry about the delay – I finished several other things I was working on and started a few more – this story'll be done in one or two chapters, namely because I want to finish it.
Sasha adjusted her armor one last time as he crept down the hallway, which, like the rest of the floor they were on, was eerily quiet – they had not seen one thing or anther and both knew that with time against them, either Charlie had gotten smart and gathered all of his resources in one localized area or they had killed them all. Smart money said option one, "I don't like this, Xander. It's too quiet."
"Preaching to the choir, sister. Ten will get you twenty that they're waiting on us."
Sasha snorted, "I do not take sucker bets, Xander." She shifted her grip on her staff and scratched her neck, "Must this armor always itch?"
"Yeah – if it didn't it'd be comfortable and one should never allow themselves to be comfortable in armor." He looked down at his wrist and saw the metallic gleam of the bracer that adorned it, it's mate and a third piece around his neck still weighing heavily on his mind – he hoped he wouldn't have to use them, but if option one came into play, then he'd need them, "Are you picking up anything?"
"Aside from our being in mutual need of both a shower and fresh clothing? No." He had to admit her smart-ass remarks were coming along nicely, but then again, he was one of the best in that department, so she had few better to learn from, "You?"
"Nada, beautiful." He came up to a corner a snuck a peek around it, almost sighing in relief when he saw a full two dozen demons around it, and then pulled back and looked at Sasha, "Finally, we found them."
She peeked around the corner and he couldn't help but notice how well her jeans clung to her backside, but then shook his head – keeping his mind on business and not pleasure was key and, unfortunately, he was having a hard time doing both. Sasha looked back and frowned, "They are all immune to magic, Xander – we must get close."
He sighed and looked down at the worn edges of his weapons – they needed to be looked at by a real blacksmith, as he had done all he could for them, and then back up at her, "Once more into the breech, my friend."
She smiled sadly and they rounded the corner together, taking off at a quick clip into the demons, screaming war cries at the last second as the demons turned.
{20 minutes later)
Sasha looked around her and then turned her head, throwing up what little she had in her stomach – the demons they had faced were 'juicy' in that when they died, they exploded and gave off a foul stench that churned at the stomach. Xander, she saw, wasn't much better as he finished gathering the last of the potions before drinking a health potion to bind the last of his oozing wounds – their tactic of charging in, screaming, had given them the edge they needed in that the first six demons died easily, the next dozen not-so-easily and the last six the pair of them had to work for. Her borrowed armor had taken the brunt of what was dealt to her in damage, but Xander had taken far worse, as he didn't have a staff, and had paid the price in that his left blade, the single, sword-like weapon, had finally succumb to the rigors of fighting and snapped after slashing into one last demon, leaving him short one weapon at the time, but proving he was resourceful and had planned ahead, he pulled a knife out of his duster and kept fighting on.
"Ready?" She could see the dullness in his eyes, knowing that hers had the same exhaustion as she nodded and trudged on – they were at the bottom and needed to find the inactive Hellmouth so that she could go home.
"Tell me again why you didn't bring your modern weaponry along with you?"
"Because I was thinking with the big head instead of the little one?" She smiled at that as they moved on, eyes peeled for more enemies, but they could hear none save one off in the distance, and it sounded like a big one, "We're not going to make it, are we, Sasha."
"Perhaps, perhaps not, Alexander," She said, some steel entering her voice as she did, "but know that if we do fall, we will have fallen doing our best."
"Do you think we'll get to heaven?"
She shrugged, "If we do, we'll shall, how do you say, raise some hell and have some fun?"
He grinned weakly at that and chuckled even more so, "If we get to heaven, Sasha, do me a favor – don't change. I think I could get used to you like this for the rest of eternity."
She snorted, "Wait until the novelty of it wears off – my sister and I don't get along at all, which is why she moved to Lut Ghulaine."
{Inactive Hellmouth}
He watched the pair of exhausted warriors enter his inner sanctum, knowing just how very little they had left to give, and smiled from within his hooded robe – the woman would make a good concubine, once her will was broken, but the male would need to suffer for a long amount of time before he submitted to his will. "Welcome, Assassin and Sorceress, to your doom."
"Yeah, like I haven't heard that before." The assassin looked at the sorceress, who was smirking, "I swear they all have the same writer, or something. Can they get ANY more clichéd than that ... drivel?"
The women shrugged, moving her staff from hand to hand, "Please, do not give them any ideas, Alexander – I am not sure that we'd be able to keep our sanity if they tried."
He felt slightly affronted with how well they played off his words, but it mattered not, "Now, if you are finished?"
"Not quite, shit stain – who are you, really? No mystery or cryptic bullshit, 'cause we're both tired and don't really want to hear it." The assassin was pert, just nigh of insulting, but he could expect nothing less from an American.
"Wesley, if you must call me anything." (AN: No, not Wussley – they are two separate people.)
The assassin yawned and the sorceress looked ready to pass out herself, "Right, whatever – let's get this over with."
"I shall use your tounge as..."
"A phallic instrument to make up for what you're lacking?" He snarled at the sorceress, who was being lightly applauded by the assassin, taking a slight bow as she did.
Wesley didn't even both to speak again, he merely bellowed and began to sling lightning, fire and ice in all different directions, but found that neither the assassin nor the sorceress were as sluggish or as exhausted as they had played to be – the former boosted his own power and lashed out left, right and center with his single claw-class weapon while the sorceress called up as many Hydras as she could and then attacked at close range; quite frankly, it was annoying with how much it stung for as little damage as they caused him, but sometimes it wasn't the size of the dog in the fight, as the old saying went, it was the size of the fight in the dog and these two mongrel mutts had more fight than he could shake a sword at.
{Xander}
He could feel the climax of the battle beginning to build and, damning himself, Xander tapped into the trio of implements to boost his power to levels unknown, supposedly – frankly, he wasn't too impressed at first, as it was just a trickle of power, but soon it grew and grew in intensity and speed; he could literally see the man/demon in the robe begin to move, then pause, and then move again, as if he was moving in still-frame photography, but then again, Xander found himself moving nearly as slowly.
(Well, let's see how he handles this) He mentally triggered his speed enhancer and while the robed being, Wesley, seemed to stay the same speed, Xander himself moved at a more fluid pace – he struck once, twice, three times and began to lose himself in the feeling of freedom, but that soon came to a halt when he saw that the man had cast a spell and he'd just run right into it.
His world snapped back to a regular pace as he opened his mouth and gave vent to a healthy scream of agony as fire and lightning crawled across his body. From within, he felt a lock release and then blessed oblivion.
{Sasha}
She flinched as Xander's scream reached her ears, but she also knew that there wasn't a thing she could do for him – she was so CLOSE to her target and this ... person was keeping her away from it, so she gritted her teeth and fired off a weak fireball as a diversion before getting in close with her staff and having at him even as Xander dropped to the ground in agony.
"Now, that was not very nice of you, young man." The man (?) looked at her as she got close and blocked her opening strike to his ribs, "Neither was that, young lady. I say, where ARE you children picking up your social skills?"
"Oh, here and there, asshole." Xander's voice was full of pain as he spoke, but the distinct sound of SNIKT was heard and then the man howled in pain as she looked down to see Xander's claws buried into the robed person's foot, "Sasha, RUN! Get to the Hellmouth and get the hell out of here – I'll hold him off."
"But you're hurt." She started to back away even as he clawed his way to his feet and the person glared fireballs at her companion.
Xander grinned as he pulled up the bloody claws and his knife, "Oh, didn't you know? When wounded, Hyenas are MUCH more dangerous." Her friend's eyes took a distinctly green cast to them as he began to cackle, "Now, run away, little girl, the pup and I have some business to conclude."
Sasha didn't give it a second thought – she ran for the Hellmouth and prayed for her friend's safety.
(Wesley)
"What are you, young man?"
The person before him had glowing yellow-green eyes, a satisfied smirk on his face and an air of insanity around him, "Name's Alpha, cub, and me and the kid go WAY back. You see, I possessed him and liked him so much, I didn't leave when his classmates tried to excise me." The young man, now named 'Alpha' lashed out with his clawed hand and as Wesley jumped out of the way, Alpha followed up with a short slice to the abdominal area that drew blood and a scream. Through the sting Wesley heard a rather insincere, "Aw, did that hurt?"
"Pillock!" Wesley drew his hand up and fired off another lightning bolt, but Alpha nimbly dodged it and taunted him to fire another one, "What will it take to kill you?"
"More than you can muster, cubby. You see, the kid is a lot of things and stupid isn't one of them." Alpha reached behind his back and withdrew something short and squat, clenched in his hand even as the ground began to shake and dust fell from the ceiling, "Welcome to the twentieth century."
In split seconds Wesley felt burning sensations all over his chest as the object barked six times and spat out fire – a gun, that's what it was. "Sneaky bastard, but unluckily for you, I am not exactly human."
"No shit – I can smell you from here, but the gun wasn't meant to kill you. It was meant to stall you."
"Stall me? But what... the woman!" He had completely forgotten about her and turned on his heel, sprinting as well as he could towards the Hellmouth, knowing there was nothing between him and her even as the quaking became even worse. She was opening a portal to her world and if that happened, he was summarily screwed.
Even as Wesley rounded the last corner, his eyes widened as he ran directly into a wall of solid ice – he kept his mind long enough to feel his skin freeze and then nothing. It was good, though, that it happened that way, because the world was literally coming down around his ears.
(Sunnydale)
Whistler stepped out of the shadows and into the Library, making just enough noise that they knew he was there before he spoke, "It's over, guys – Sasha's back in her world." The Slayer and her friends all sighed a brief sigh of relief before the young Wicca spoke.
"What about Xander?"
Whistler took out a cigarette from his jacket, lit it up and took a deep drag off of it before letting it out slowly and speaking, "We don't know – he might be okay, he might be dead, but either way we can't find him. Something happened when Sasha opened the portal and ... he's gone." Without another word, Whistler turned and stepped back into the shadows as he heard the Wicca begin to cry and even the Techno-pagan weep as well.
Sometimes, he really hated this job – he'd bet on the pair of them getting slaughtered the first go-round and had lost big, too. The one person who had won was the one person nobody would have expected to bet on a force of light – Lucifer.
(Library)
Jenny bowed her head and silently prayed for the soul of her lost ally and possible friend while Willow sobbed into Oz's shirt, Buffy cried into Giles' shirt and the Englishman also shed a tear; they may not have parted on the best of terms, but at least they recognized that they had lost an ally of some note and were sorrowful.
Jenny, though, knew that if there was a way in hell, Xander would find his way back to them – he had to.
The End?
Post-Fic Notes – Alright, I just wanted to get this fic done with and while I have left some room for a possible sequel, don't expect it for a long time, due to some writer's block/burnout. Thanks for putting up with me, Anime Ronin.
AN: Sorry about the delay – I finished several other things I was working on and started a few more – this story'll be done in one or two chapters, namely because I want to finish it.
Sasha adjusted her armor one last time as he crept down the hallway, which, like the rest of the floor they were on, was eerily quiet – they had not seen one thing or anther and both knew that with time against them, either Charlie had gotten smart and gathered all of his resources in one localized area or they had killed them all. Smart money said option one, "I don't like this, Xander. It's too quiet."
"Preaching to the choir, sister. Ten will get you twenty that they're waiting on us."
Sasha snorted, "I do not take sucker bets, Xander." She shifted her grip on her staff and scratched her neck, "Must this armor always itch?"
"Yeah – if it didn't it'd be comfortable and one should never allow themselves to be comfortable in armor." He looked down at his wrist and saw the metallic gleam of the bracer that adorned it, it's mate and a third piece around his neck still weighing heavily on his mind – he hoped he wouldn't have to use them, but if option one came into play, then he'd need them, "Are you picking up anything?"
"Aside from our being in mutual need of both a shower and fresh clothing? No." He had to admit her smart-ass remarks were coming along nicely, but then again, he was one of the best in that department, so she had few better to learn from, "You?"
"Nada, beautiful." He came up to a corner a snuck a peek around it, almost sighing in relief when he saw a full two dozen demons around it, and then pulled back and looked at Sasha, "Finally, we found them."
She peeked around the corner and he couldn't help but notice how well her jeans clung to her backside, but then shook his head – keeping his mind on business and not pleasure was key and, unfortunately, he was having a hard time doing both. Sasha looked back and frowned, "They are all immune to magic, Xander – we must get close."
He sighed and looked down at the worn edges of his weapons – they needed to be looked at by a real blacksmith, as he had done all he could for them, and then back up at her, "Once more into the breech, my friend."
She smiled sadly and they rounded the corner together, taking off at a quick clip into the demons, screaming war cries at the last second as the demons turned.
{20 minutes later)
Sasha looked around her and then turned her head, throwing up what little she had in her stomach – the demons they had faced were 'juicy' in that when they died, they exploded and gave off a foul stench that churned at the stomach. Xander, she saw, wasn't much better as he finished gathering the last of the potions before drinking a health potion to bind the last of his oozing wounds – their tactic of charging in, screaming, had given them the edge they needed in that the first six demons died easily, the next dozen not-so-easily and the last six the pair of them had to work for. Her borrowed armor had taken the brunt of what was dealt to her in damage, but Xander had taken far worse, as he didn't have a staff, and had paid the price in that his left blade, the single, sword-like weapon, had finally succumb to the rigors of fighting and snapped after slashing into one last demon, leaving him short one weapon at the time, but proving he was resourceful and had planned ahead, he pulled a knife out of his duster and kept fighting on.
"Ready?" She could see the dullness in his eyes, knowing that hers had the same exhaustion as she nodded and trudged on – they were at the bottom and needed to find the inactive Hellmouth so that she could go home.
"Tell me again why you didn't bring your modern weaponry along with you?"
"Because I was thinking with the big head instead of the little one?" She smiled at that as they moved on, eyes peeled for more enemies, but they could hear none save one off in the distance, and it sounded like a big one, "We're not going to make it, are we, Sasha."
"Perhaps, perhaps not, Alexander," She said, some steel entering her voice as she did, "but know that if we do fall, we will have fallen doing our best."
"Do you think we'll get to heaven?"
She shrugged, "If we do, we'll shall, how do you say, raise some hell and have some fun?"
He grinned weakly at that and chuckled even more so, "If we get to heaven, Sasha, do me a favor – don't change. I think I could get used to you like this for the rest of eternity."
She snorted, "Wait until the novelty of it wears off – my sister and I don't get along at all, which is why she moved to Lut Ghulaine."
{Inactive Hellmouth}
He watched the pair of exhausted warriors enter his inner sanctum, knowing just how very little they had left to give, and smiled from within his hooded robe – the woman would make a good concubine, once her will was broken, but the male would need to suffer for a long amount of time before he submitted to his will. "Welcome, Assassin and Sorceress, to your doom."
"Yeah, like I haven't heard that before." The assassin looked at the sorceress, who was smirking, "I swear they all have the same writer, or something. Can they get ANY more clichéd than that ... drivel?"
The women shrugged, moving her staff from hand to hand, "Please, do not give them any ideas, Alexander – I am not sure that we'd be able to keep our sanity if they tried."
He felt slightly affronted with how well they played off his words, but it mattered not, "Now, if you are finished?"
"Not quite, shit stain – who are you, really? No mystery or cryptic bullshit, 'cause we're both tired and don't really want to hear it." The assassin was pert, just nigh of insulting, but he could expect nothing less from an American.
"Wesley, if you must call me anything." (AN: No, not Wussley – they are two separate people.)
The assassin yawned and the sorceress looked ready to pass out herself, "Right, whatever – let's get this over with."
"I shall use your tounge as..."
"A phallic instrument to make up for what you're lacking?" He snarled at the sorceress, who was being lightly applauded by the assassin, taking a slight bow as she did.
Wesley didn't even both to speak again, he merely bellowed and began to sling lightning, fire and ice in all different directions, but found that neither the assassin nor the sorceress were as sluggish or as exhausted as they had played to be – the former boosted his own power and lashed out left, right and center with his single claw-class weapon while the sorceress called up as many Hydras as she could and then attacked at close range; quite frankly, it was annoying with how much it stung for as little damage as they caused him, but sometimes it wasn't the size of the dog in the fight, as the old saying went, it was the size of the fight in the dog and these two mongrel mutts had more fight than he could shake a sword at.
{Xander}
He could feel the climax of the battle beginning to build and, damning himself, Xander tapped into the trio of implements to boost his power to levels unknown, supposedly – frankly, he wasn't too impressed at first, as it was just a trickle of power, but soon it grew and grew in intensity and speed; he could literally see the man/demon in the robe begin to move, then pause, and then move again, as if he was moving in still-frame photography, but then again, Xander found himself moving nearly as slowly.
(Well, let's see how he handles this) He mentally triggered his speed enhancer and while the robed being, Wesley, seemed to stay the same speed, Xander himself moved at a more fluid pace – he struck once, twice, three times and began to lose himself in the feeling of freedom, but that soon came to a halt when he saw that the man had cast a spell and he'd just run right into it.
His world snapped back to a regular pace as he opened his mouth and gave vent to a healthy scream of agony as fire and lightning crawled across his body. From within, he felt a lock release and then blessed oblivion.
{Sasha}
She flinched as Xander's scream reached her ears, but she also knew that there wasn't a thing she could do for him – she was so CLOSE to her target and this ... person was keeping her away from it, so she gritted her teeth and fired off a weak fireball as a diversion before getting in close with her staff and having at him even as Xander dropped to the ground in agony.
"Now, that was not very nice of you, young man." The man (?) looked at her as she got close and blocked her opening strike to his ribs, "Neither was that, young lady. I say, where ARE you children picking up your social skills?"
"Oh, here and there, asshole." Xander's voice was full of pain as he spoke, but the distinct sound of SNIKT was heard and then the man howled in pain as she looked down to see Xander's claws buried into the robed person's foot, "Sasha, RUN! Get to the Hellmouth and get the hell out of here – I'll hold him off."
"But you're hurt." She started to back away even as he clawed his way to his feet and the person glared fireballs at her companion.
Xander grinned as he pulled up the bloody claws and his knife, "Oh, didn't you know? When wounded, Hyenas are MUCH more dangerous." Her friend's eyes took a distinctly green cast to them as he began to cackle, "Now, run away, little girl, the pup and I have some business to conclude."
Sasha didn't give it a second thought – she ran for the Hellmouth and prayed for her friend's safety.
(Wesley)
"What are you, young man?"
The person before him had glowing yellow-green eyes, a satisfied smirk on his face and an air of insanity around him, "Name's Alpha, cub, and me and the kid go WAY back. You see, I possessed him and liked him so much, I didn't leave when his classmates tried to excise me." The young man, now named 'Alpha' lashed out with his clawed hand and as Wesley jumped out of the way, Alpha followed up with a short slice to the abdominal area that drew blood and a scream. Through the sting Wesley heard a rather insincere, "Aw, did that hurt?"
"Pillock!" Wesley drew his hand up and fired off another lightning bolt, but Alpha nimbly dodged it and taunted him to fire another one, "What will it take to kill you?"
"More than you can muster, cubby. You see, the kid is a lot of things and stupid isn't one of them." Alpha reached behind his back and withdrew something short and squat, clenched in his hand even as the ground began to shake and dust fell from the ceiling, "Welcome to the twentieth century."
In split seconds Wesley felt burning sensations all over his chest as the object barked six times and spat out fire – a gun, that's what it was. "Sneaky bastard, but unluckily for you, I am not exactly human."
"No shit – I can smell you from here, but the gun wasn't meant to kill you. It was meant to stall you."
"Stall me? But what... the woman!" He had completely forgotten about her and turned on his heel, sprinting as well as he could towards the Hellmouth, knowing there was nothing between him and her even as the quaking became even worse. She was opening a portal to her world and if that happened, he was summarily screwed.
Even as Wesley rounded the last corner, his eyes widened as he ran directly into a wall of solid ice – he kept his mind long enough to feel his skin freeze and then nothing. It was good, though, that it happened that way, because the world was literally coming down around his ears.
(Sunnydale)
Whistler stepped out of the shadows and into the Library, making just enough noise that they knew he was there before he spoke, "It's over, guys – Sasha's back in her world." The Slayer and her friends all sighed a brief sigh of relief before the young Wicca spoke.
"What about Xander?"
Whistler took out a cigarette from his jacket, lit it up and took a deep drag off of it before letting it out slowly and speaking, "We don't know – he might be okay, he might be dead, but either way we can't find him. Something happened when Sasha opened the portal and ... he's gone." Without another word, Whistler turned and stepped back into the shadows as he heard the Wicca begin to cry and even the Techno-pagan weep as well.
Sometimes, he really hated this job – he'd bet on the pair of them getting slaughtered the first go-round and had lost big, too. The one person who had won was the one person nobody would have expected to bet on a force of light – Lucifer.
(Library)
Jenny bowed her head and silently prayed for the soul of her lost ally and possible friend while Willow sobbed into Oz's shirt, Buffy cried into Giles' shirt and the Englishman also shed a tear; they may not have parted on the best of terms, but at least they recognized that they had lost an ally of some note and were sorrowful.
Jenny, though, knew that if there was a way in hell, Xander would find his way back to them – he had to.
The End?
Post-Fic Notes – Alright, I just wanted to get this fic done with and while I have left some room for a possible sequel, don't expect it for a long time, due to some writer's block/burnout. Thanks for putting up with me, Anime Ronin.