The Senior Partners
Chapter One:
"Let's Get to Work"
Illyria looked upon the approaching army with sheer anger. She wanted to do more violence. Wesley was dead. That's all that she could think about. Wesley was dead and she had sat there while it had happened, powerless to stop the inevitable process of death. Wesley was dead and now she wanted to avenge him.
Suddenly Illyria felt as though her life had no meaning. She had been so great once. She had possessed an army like this one herself during the height of her reign. Those had been the days. But, now she was reduced to this sniveling, tiny being and mourning over a being that would have meant nothing to her before. She felt detached from this vessel that the others had once known as Fred. She wondered if this suffering was all that her new life would offer her. Didn't matter now, though. Wesley was dead, and she was about to avenge his death.
"Let's go to work," Angel stated somewhere that seemed in the far distance, beyond the horizon. Then she saw him slash his sword out and bring down one of the demons.
The alley they were in was dark and wet. The rain that was pouring was annoying Illyria. Its splashing and pounding upon hitting whatever was beneath it seemed to overpower everything else. She felt as though she could not deal with it anymore.
She grabbed a demon's armored arm and snapped it like a tooth pick.
The demon looked at her and roared. Its face was covered in spikes with purplish skin that seemed stretched so tight across its skull that it might snap at any moment and expose the skull beneath. Its yellow eyes, which looked more full of anger than Illyria felt contained inside herself, fixated upon her and it opened its tusked mouth and a primal, gurgling roar was emitted. Illyria then threw it back. It landed on top of six or seven of the others and she saw it was impaled by a sword that sprayed silver blood everywhere to mix with the rain.
The others threw the body off of them and rushed at Illyria. She punched one in the gut and felt as well as heard the bones beneath break. These things were as brittle as glass!
She kicked the next two away and their fates were unknown to her. She snapped one's neck and then used its sword to slash the mid-sections of the rest surrounding her in a single stroke. More silver blood blasted out of the wounds.
Illyria glanced at Angel and Spike. They were fighting side-by-side, taking down demon after demon with their swords. They looked like they could go a good ten or twenty minutes like that. Then Illyria searched for Gunn.
She saw him slashing weakly at the demons attacking him. He was clutching at the bleeding cut on his stomach with one bloodied hand while hunched over. His blows weren't having a great effect upon his demon adversaries, and some of them were getting back up for another go at him.
Illyria did not wish to see him go down so early in the battle, so she rushed over and helped him pick off the survivors.
"Thanks," he gasped out and started breathing heavily.
"You were in need of assistance," Illyria replied. "I did not wish to see you die so soon. You are--"
"Not unpleasant to your eyes," Gunn finished. "Same to you."
Illyria nodded and then turned back to the onslaught of monsters. There was a giant creature walking amongst them. Illyria knew that once it reached them they would all be killed. They wouldn't be able to bring that thing down even if their life depended upon it… which it kind of did.
There was flapping above her and Illyria glanced up. There was a small dragon above them, darting about the sky, screeching its nightmarish calls into the thundering night sky. Angel had said he wanted to fight it. Looks like he was about to get his wish.
The dragon had a small tail that ended in a club. Its scaled body was about fifteen feet long and it had a good thirty foot wing-span. It was relatively small compared to the dragons Illyria had seen in her time; some of those things had measured in at over a hundred feet long.
Its face was slightly insect-like rather than the popular reptilian face that was commonly shown on the silver screen. It resembled a beetle and had beady black eyes that seemed dead yet lively at the same time. There was a line of large, sharp-looking spikes on its back that started just below its neck and ended at the club at the end of the tail. It had two legs while its wings served as arms.
The dragon was descending in its flight. It was about to land and send them all to a fiery death.
Illyria turned to Angel and Spike.
"The winged one is coming!" she shouted over the surrounding roars of demons, clashes of swords, and the persistent pounding of rain. Angel turned to her and Spike's load of demons was instantly doubled.
Angel approached Illyria and Gunn. Gunn was providing a weak shield for the two while Spike was just hacking away at anything that was unlucky enough to cross his path.
"Help them," Angel ordered and Illyria obeyed after glancing back up at the dragon which was now less than thirty feet above the ground. Her blue hair was blowing out of her face every time it flapped its wings. She rejoined Gunn and started bashing in skulls and snapping frail bones into splinters. Gunn was weakening. His blood was running in short supply now. Illyria knew this, and she found herself already mourning him as well. That made her even more angry.
"BLOODY HELL!" Spike screamed and Illyria spun to see what the problem was.
A sword was protruding from Spike's chest. The demon behind him pulled it out and then buried it in his ribs. Apparently the demon didn't understand the rules of how a vampire lives and dies.
Spike snatched the sword before it was retracted and pulled it from the demon's hands. He turned around and hacked its head off. He then stumbled away clutching at his side and screaming in pain.
"You bastard!" he shouted and then collapsed onto his back. "Ah! Damn!"
Illyria was about to go to him when he got back up and resumed fighting.
Then Illyria felt a blasting heat on her back. Her skin felt like it was boiling. She fell to the ground and rolled onto her back. A bright cloud of flame was floating upwards and disappearing simultaneously. Gunn was on the ground as well.
The demons that had been attacking them were now running around on fire. The dragon had shot out its first blast of the brawl. Illyria sat up and saw as Angel charged forward with his sword raised.
!!!$%$%$%
Angel threw his arm up to shield his face from the billowing flames that had exploded from the thing's beetle-like mouth. He then was on his feet in a flash and charging at it with his sword raised.
Far, far away he heard himself hollering a war cry. Then it was crawling across the ground towards him shaking its head from side to side screeching.
Angel came in low and lashed out at its wing. It lifted its wing and whacked his forehead, successfully disorienting him. It then tried its fire breath again, but Angel got his sword swinging again before it could charge itself up. The first swing put a mark on its wing while the other slashed its lower-lip which then spilled blue blood out onto the ground.
The dragon screeched again and withdrew itself. Its tail whacked against the chain-link fence that marked the end of the alley. Angel saw it give way slightly, ever so slightly.
The other wing came around and Angel ducked beneath it in just the nick of time. The wing rustled above him and the dragon brought it back to its side. It screeched its rage at him and then came at him full force.
It turned around this time and started swinging its clubbed tail about. Angel leapt above it and landed awkwardly which caused him to fall onto his side. Like Illyria, he, too, felt as if he should avenge Wesley's death. That's probably what was making him fight despite his weakened state (that fight in the main hall had taken a lot out of him).
Angel got up and suddenly felt a great deal of pain in his side as the club whipped him, throwing him against the building to his left. He heard the bricks cracking as he hit them. Then he fell to the ground again. He coughed up blood and looked up at the dragon.
It was looking at him, growling deeply.
"Come on then," Angel muttered at it. He winced as he stood up at the pain in his side. "Come on!"
It rushed at him dazzlingly fast and Angel barely had time to roll out of the way before it had reached the building and was tearing at it. Angel slid on the slick blue and silver blood he had landed on and stopped at the feet of Illyria.
"The blonde one is injured," she stated casually as if nothing was happening at all. Angel looked over and saw Spike fighting with Gunn. It didn't look like they would last long.
"Little busy here," Angel replied and was suddenly pulled away by his foot, which was in the dragon's mouth, and thrown into the chain-link fence. "ACK!"
He thrust his sword at the mouth still clasped tight over his foot. Blood spewed out of the wound and covered Angel's blade. He pulled it out and blood gushed out.
The dragon dropped Angel into the new puddle of the blue blood and Angel winced as he felt that the blood was more like jell-o than blood.
The tail came after him again. He rolled over and the club struck the pavement where he had been just a split-second ago. The pavement blasted upward and sent cracks in every direction from the center of the impact.
The dragon attacked him with its hind legs and scratched up his right shoulder and arm with its hooked claws. Angel screamed and grabbed his bleeding arm in a death grip.
He rolled again and the club smashed into the pavement once again. Angel got to his feet and rushed the dragon with his sword in his left hand now. He brought it down and it cleaved a bloody gash into the dragon's side.
It screeched again and swung around to face him. He lost his grip on the handle of his sword and it was left growing out of the dragon's side.
"Damn," he muttered under his breath and was then flung to the ground as the dragon pressed on his back with its wing. He grunted as he tried to push himself up, but it pushed him back down with great ease. Angel felt like he knew how an antelope must feel once caught by a lion. Completely helpless.
He knew this was the end. He was about to die at the hands of this dragon. The culmination of all of the events of his life. He suddenly regretted signing that prophecy away. He wouldn't be in this position had he not done so.
Then all of those emotions melted away as the weight lifted off of his back. He was dimly aware that Spike was dragging him away from the dragon. He briefly wondered why the dragon wasn't in the midst of mutilating the both of them, then he saw Illyria and Gunn attacking it.
Illyria was snapping its tail while Gunn was slashing its legs. Illyria was tossed away with the slap of the tail's club and fell into the laps of a dozen demons. She had them all killed almost immediately and was wielding two swords afterwards.
"I'm pretty sick and tired of the Senior Partners' lackeys," Spike stated and then helped Angel stand up. Angel saw that he was leaking a good deal of blood himself. "Wouldn't mind 'acking away at that dragon though."
Then Spike took off with his sword, rushing at the dragon that was now focusing on Gunn.
Spike buried the blade of his sword in the dragon's hide and it screeched and blew flames up into the sky in a seemingly endless stream. Spike also lost his sword as the dragon spun to face him.
"Oh bollocks," Spike said and was thrown to the ground as the dragon bit at him. Spike grabbed both jaws and kept them open so that he wouldn't get chopped in half.
Angel rushed forward, not taking much time to notice that Illyria was skillfully hewing through the demons unlike Spike and him had been. Gunn was stabbing the dragon futilely.
"Little help here would be nice Angel!" Spike bellowed as the jaws drew closer together.
Angel looked around for something to use as a weapon and could find nothing other than the two swords sticking out of the dragon. He then did the only thing he could think to do.
Angel rushed forward while the dragon was distracted by Spike and grabbed the hilt of the sword he had lost. He pulled it out of the dragon, ignoring the jell-o blood that flowed out after it, and ran to the dragon's head.
Too late did it realize that it should've been focusing on Angel. Angel thrust the sword straight into the dragon's beady, black eye, and then pulled Spike out of its mouth as it screeched its pain and fury to the heavens above.
Angel ran forward again and pulled his sword out of its eye. It swung its head around and Angel fell over on top of it. The dragon didn't seem to care because it started flying off anyway with Angel clutching onto its head.
They were fifty feet up in the air before Angel got his sword up and drove it through the dragon's skull. It was dead almost instantly. Then it fell to the ground with Angel.
The impact drove the breath out of Angel and he rolled off of the dragon and fell onto the pavement. He felt a smile spread across his face.
"Well… that was difficult," he got out and then started laughing, oblivious to the fighting that was still going on.
Then Angel heard the last voice on Earth that he had expected to hear.
"That was… impressive."
Angel sat up and turned around. He trailed the body of a young girl up to her blonde head. She was holding an axe in one hand and a curved dagger in the other.
"You and the others can rest," Buffy said. "We'll take it from here."
Angel was about to ask what she meant, but then he saw Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, Andrew, and dozens of other girls he didn't know behind them.
"Buffy?"
"I heard that you had come over to Rome a little bit ago," Buffy began explaining. "Figured that the world was ending."
"Looks like the cavalry has arrived!" Spike shouted to the others.
The Scooby Gang and friends had torn through the chain-link fence. They were now rushing forward into battle. Dawn was collecting Gunn and Illyria. She was a little wary of Illyria at first, but Illyria came with her easily enough.
Dawn herded them out into the street where Angel was stunned to see Riley standing amidst a legion of soldiers.
"I'm guessing you had more than a hunch that the apocalypse was coming," Angel thought aloud and Dawn smiled.
"Just a little bit more than a hunch."
Angel glanced back and saw Buffy with her friends and the other women mutilating the demons in the alley. They were lucky; they weren't weakened and they had a lot of numbers on their side. They only retreated when the big guy reached them. Then Riley and company blasted it to the ground.
The apocalypse had begun.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of the story. I was unsatisfied with the ending of the "Angel" series and felt like writing a continuation.
I thought they should've brought in Buffy and the ex-potentials for a good two-hour finale that would at least have gone this far into the battle. I'll have some more chapters up later. The ending will be more satisfying than the show's.
That's it for my A/N.
"I want you Lindsey… thinking about rephrasing that." - Angel "Angel"
Chapter One:
"Let's Get to Work"
Illyria looked upon the approaching army with sheer anger. She wanted to do more violence. Wesley was dead. That's all that she could think about. Wesley was dead and she had sat there while it had happened, powerless to stop the inevitable process of death. Wesley was dead and now she wanted to avenge him.
Suddenly Illyria felt as though her life had no meaning. She had been so great once. She had possessed an army like this one herself during the height of her reign. Those had been the days. But, now she was reduced to this sniveling, tiny being and mourning over a being that would have meant nothing to her before. She felt detached from this vessel that the others had once known as Fred. She wondered if this suffering was all that her new life would offer her. Didn't matter now, though. Wesley was dead, and she was about to avenge his death.
"Let's go to work," Angel stated somewhere that seemed in the far distance, beyond the horizon. Then she saw him slash his sword out and bring down one of the demons.
The alley they were in was dark and wet. The rain that was pouring was annoying Illyria. Its splashing and pounding upon hitting whatever was beneath it seemed to overpower everything else. She felt as though she could not deal with it anymore.
She grabbed a demon's armored arm and snapped it like a tooth pick.
The demon looked at her and roared. Its face was covered in spikes with purplish skin that seemed stretched so tight across its skull that it might snap at any moment and expose the skull beneath. Its yellow eyes, which looked more full of anger than Illyria felt contained inside herself, fixated upon her and it opened its tusked mouth and a primal, gurgling roar was emitted. Illyria then threw it back. It landed on top of six or seven of the others and she saw it was impaled by a sword that sprayed silver blood everywhere to mix with the rain.
The others threw the body off of them and rushed at Illyria. She punched one in the gut and felt as well as heard the bones beneath break. These things were as brittle as glass!
She kicked the next two away and their fates were unknown to her. She snapped one's neck and then used its sword to slash the mid-sections of the rest surrounding her in a single stroke. More silver blood blasted out of the wounds.
Illyria glanced at Angel and Spike. They were fighting side-by-side, taking down demon after demon with their swords. They looked like they could go a good ten or twenty minutes like that. Then Illyria searched for Gunn.
She saw him slashing weakly at the demons attacking him. He was clutching at the bleeding cut on his stomach with one bloodied hand while hunched over. His blows weren't having a great effect upon his demon adversaries, and some of them were getting back up for another go at him.
Illyria did not wish to see him go down so early in the battle, so she rushed over and helped him pick off the survivors.
"Thanks," he gasped out and started breathing heavily.
"You were in need of assistance," Illyria replied. "I did not wish to see you die so soon. You are--"
"Not unpleasant to your eyes," Gunn finished. "Same to you."
Illyria nodded and then turned back to the onslaught of monsters. There was a giant creature walking amongst them. Illyria knew that once it reached them they would all be killed. They wouldn't be able to bring that thing down even if their life depended upon it… which it kind of did.
There was flapping above her and Illyria glanced up. There was a small dragon above them, darting about the sky, screeching its nightmarish calls into the thundering night sky. Angel had said he wanted to fight it. Looks like he was about to get his wish.
The dragon had a small tail that ended in a club. Its scaled body was about fifteen feet long and it had a good thirty foot wing-span. It was relatively small compared to the dragons Illyria had seen in her time; some of those things had measured in at over a hundred feet long.
Its face was slightly insect-like rather than the popular reptilian face that was commonly shown on the silver screen. It resembled a beetle and had beady black eyes that seemed dead yet lively at the same time. There was a line of large, sharp-looking spikes on its back that started just below its neck and ended at the club at the end of the tail. It had two legs while its wings served as arms.
The dragon was descending in its flight. It was about to land and send them all to a fiery death.
Illyria turned to Angel and Spike.
"The winged one is coming!" she shouted over the surrounding roars of demons, clashes of swords, and the persistent pounding of rain. Angel turned to her and Spike's load of demons was instantly doubled.
Angel approached Illyria and Gunn. Gunn was providing a weak shield for the two while Spike was just hacking away at anything that was unlucky enough to cross his path.
"Help them," Angel ordered and Illyria obeyed after glancing back up at the dragon which was now less than thirty feet above the ground. Her blue hair was blowing out of her face every time it flapped its wings. She rejoined Gunn and started bashing in skulls and snapping frail bones into splinters. Gunn was weakening. His blood was running in short supply now. Illyria knew this, and she found herself already mourning him as well. That made her even more angry.
"BLOODY HELL!" Spike screamed and Illyria spun to see what the problem was.
A sword was protruding from Spike's chest. The demon behind him pulled it out and then buried it in his ribs. Apparently the demon didn't understand the rules of how a vampire lives and dies.
Spike snatched the sword before it was retracted and pulled it from the demon's hands. He turned around and hacked its head off. He then stumbled away clutching at his side and screaming in pain.
"You bastard!" he shouted and then collapsed onto his back. "Ah! Damn!"
Illyria was about to go to him when he got back up and resumed fighting.
Then Illyria felt a blasting heat on her back. Her skin felt like it was boiling. She fell to the ground and rolled onto her back. A bright cloud of flame was floating upwards and disappearing simultaneously. Gunn was on the ground as well.
The demons that had been attacking them were now running around on fire. The dragon had shot out its first blast of the brawl. Illyria sat up and saw as Angel charged forward with his sword raised.
!!!$%$%$%
Angel threw his arm up to shield his face from the billowing flames that had exploded from the thing's beetle-like mouth. He then was on his feet in a flash and charging at it with his sword raised.
Far, far away he heard himself hollering a war cry. Then it was crawling across the ground towards him shaking its head from side to side screeching.
Angel came in low and lashed out at its wing. It lifted its wing and whacked his forehead, successfully disorienting him. It then tried its fire breath again, but Angel got his sword swinging again before it could charge itself up. The first swing put a mark on its wing while the other slashed its lower-lip which then spilled blue blood out onto the ground.
The dragon screeched again and withdrew itself. Its tail whacked against the chain-link fence that marked the end of the alley. Angel saw it give way slightly, ever so slightly.
The other wing came around and Angel ducked beneath it in just the nick of time. The wing rustled above him and the dragon brought it back to its side. It screeched its rage at him and then came at him full force.
It turned around this time and started swinging its clubbed tail about. Angel leapt above it and landed awkwardly which caused him to fall onto his side. Like Illyria, he, too, felt as if he should avenge Wesley's death. That's probably what was making him fight despite his weakened state (that fight in the main hall had taken a lot out of him).
Angel got up and suddenly felt a great deal of pain in his side as the club whipped him, throwing him against the building to his left. He heard the bricks cracking as he hit them. Then he fell to the ground again. He coughed up blood and looked up at the dragon.
It was looking at him, growling deeply.
"Come on then," Angel muttered at it. He winced as he stood up at the pain in his side. "Come on!"
It rushed at him dazzlingly fast and Angel barely had time to roll out of the way before it had reached the building and was tearing at it. Angel slid on the slick blue and silver blood he had landed on and stopped at the feet of Illyria.
"The blonde one is injured," she stated casually as if nothing was happening at all. Angel looked over and saw Spike fighting with Gunn. It didn't look like they would last long.
"Little busy here," Angel replied and was suddenly pulled away by his foot, which was in the dragon's mouth, and thrown into the chain-link fence. "ACK!"
He thrust his sword at the mouth still clasped tight over his foot. Blood spewed out of the wound and covered Angel's blade. He pulled it out and blood gushed out.
The dragon dropped Angel into the new puddle of the blue blood and Angel winced as he felt that the blood was more like jell-o than blood.
The tail came after him again. He rolled over and the club struck the pavement where he had been just a split-second ago. The pavement blasted upward and sent cracks in every direction from the center of the impact.
The dragon attacked him with its hind legs and scratched up his right shoulder and arm with its hooked claws. Angel screamed and grabbed his bleeding arm in a death grip.
He rolled again and the club smashed into the pavement once again. Angel got to his feet and rushed the dragon with his sword in his left hand now. He brought it down and it cleaved a bloody gash into the dragon's side.
It screeched again and swung around to face him. He lost his grip on the handle of his sword and it was left growing out of the dragon's side.
"Damn," he muttered under his breath and was then flung to the ground as the dragon pressed on his back with its wing. He grunted as he tried to push himself up, but it pushed him back down with great ease. Angel felt like he knew how an antelope must feel once caught by a lion. Completely helpless.
He knew this was the end. He was about to die at the hands of this dragon. The culmination of all of the events of his life. He suddenly regretted signing that prophecy away. He wouldn't be in this position had he not done so.
Then all of those emotions melted away as the weight lifted off of his back. He was dimly aware that Spike was dragging him away from the dragon. He briefly wondered why the dragon wasn't in the midst of mutilating the both of them, then he saw Illyria and Gunn attacking it.
Illyria was snapping its tail while Gunn was slashing its legs. Illyria was tossed away with the slap of the tail's club and fell into the laps of a dozen demons. She had them all killed almost immediately and was wielding two swords afterwards.
"I'm pretty sick and tired of the Senior Partners' lackeys," Spike stated and then helped Angel stand up. Angel saw that he was leaking a good deal of blood himself. "Wouldn't mind 'acking away at that dragon though."
Then Spike took off with his sword, rushing at the dragon that was now focusing on Gunn.
Spike buried the blade of his sword in the dragon's hide and it screeched and blew flames up into the sky in a seemingly endless stream. Spike also lost his sword as the dragon spun to face him.
"Oh bollocks," Spike said and was thrown to the ground as the dragon bit at him. Spike grabbed both jaws and kept them open so that he wouldn't get chopped in half.
Angel rushed forward, not taking much time to notice that Illyria was skillfully hewing through the demons unlike Spike and him had been. Gunn was stabbing the dragon futilely.
"Little help here would be nice Angel!" Spike bellowed as the jaws drew closer together.
Angel looked around for something to use as a weapon and could find nothing other than the two swords sticking out of the dragon. He then did the only thing he could think to do.
Angel rushed forward while the dragon was distracted by Spike and grabbed the hilt of the sword he had lost. He pulled it out of the dragon, ignoring the jell-o blood that flowed out after it, and ran to the dragon's head.
Too late did it realize that it should've been focusing on Angel. Angel thrust the sword straight into the dragon's beady, black eye, and then pulled Spike out of its mouth as it screeched its pain and fury to the heavens above.
Angel ran forward again and pulled his sword out of its eye. It swung its head around and Angel fell over on top of it. The dragon didn't seem to care because it started flying off anyway with Angel clutching onto its head.
They were fifty feet up in the air before Angel got his sword up and drove it through the dragon's skull. It was dead almost instantly. Then it fell to the ground with Angel.
The impact drove the breath out of Angel and he rolled off of the dragon and fell onto the pavement. He felt a smile spread across his face.
"Well… that was difficult," he got out and then started laughing, oblivious to the fighting that was still going on.
Then Angel heard the last voice on Earth that he had expected to hear.
"That was… impressive."
Angel sat up and turned around. He trailed the body of a young girl up to her blonde head. She was holding an axe in one hand and a curved dagger in the other.
"You and the others can rest," Buffy said. "We'll take it from here."
Angel was about to ask what she meant, but then he saw Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, Andrew, and dozens of other girls he didn't know behind them.
"Buffy?"
"I heard that you had come over to Rome a little bit ago," Buffy began explaining. "Figured that the world was ending."
"Looks like the cavalry has arrived!" Spike shouted to the others.
The Scooby Gang and friends had torn through the chain-link fence. They were now rushing forward into battle. Dawn was collecting Gunn and Illyria. She was a little wary of Illyria at first, but Illyria came with her easily enough.
Dawn herded them out into the street where Angel was stunned to see Riley standing amidst a legion of soldiers.
"I'm guessing you had more than a hunch that the apocalypse was coming," Angel thought aloud and Dawn smiled.
"Just a little bit more than a hunch."
Angel glanced back and saw Buffy with her friends and the other women mutilating the demons in the alley. They were lucky; they weren't weakened and they had a lot of numbers on their side. They only retreated when the big guy reached them. Then Riley and company blasted it to the ground.
The apocalypse had begun.
()()()()()()()()()()()()
Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of the story. I was unsatisfied with the ending of the "Angel" series and felt like writing a continuation.
I thought they should've brought in Buffy and the ex-potentials for a good two-hour finale that would at least have gone this far into the battle. I'll have some more chapters up later. The ending will be more satisfying than the show's.
That's it for my A/N.
"I want you Lindsey… thinking about rephrasing that." - Angel "Angel"