Darklight: yep
Maverick: oh hell yeah!
Rankokun: blame my warped and twisted sense of humour
Dawn: I'm a 20-something heterosexual male. What was your question again?
The Sunnydale Connection (Part 7)
Sunnydale High School stood before the assembled army of Slayers, Potentials and assorted friends. Mathilda gripped her sword nervously, wishing she had something a little more powerful.
Like a 50-megaton nuke or two.
Buffy took a silent step forward, signalling them to follow her.
"You ok?" Faith asked as they made their way down into the basement as the others got set up.
"I'm about to voluntarily walk into the mouth of hell to face an army of demons and vampires, and you ask me if I'm 'ok'?" Mathilda looked at her lover with one eyebrow raised, "What does 'ok' mean on the planet you're from?"
"Point well made." Faith smiled, "You'll get through this: you're a fighter."
"I guess we're about to find out…" Mathilda watched as Buffy opened the sealed Hellmouth and lead the way down, Spike bringing up the rear, the medallion Angel had given Buffy hanging round his neck.
The cover to the Hellmouth opened with the sound of grinding rock, revelling a stairway leading down even further. Buffy went first, followed by Spike and the Potentials, with Faith bringing up the rear.
They followed the passageway at the bottom of the steps until it opened up onto a ledge overlooking a truly massive cavern that seemed to stretch to the horizon. Tens of thousands of Bringers and Turok-Han covered the floor in a mass of pure evil, ready to go forth and destroy the human world.
The Potentials looked like deer caught in headlights.
Mathilda held her breath, worried that the slightest sound would alert the army below them to their presence, and end their desperate gambit before it started. Her sword felt heavy in her sweating hands, and her heartbeat sounded like a heavy metal drum solo in her ears.
One of the Turok-Han looked up and saw them. It let out a blood-curdling scream, alerting the others to the threat.
As one they charged, running up the almost sheer rock face towards the Potentials.
Something inside Mathilda clicked, and her training and experience took over. She drove her sword into the ground by the point and reached into the pockets of her trench coat. Her hands were back out in a flash, each one holding the deadly shape of a grenade. She took a quick step forward, her thumbs pulling the pins from the grenades as she dropped them down the cliff.
They exploded halfway down, flame and smoke claiming dozen demons instantly, the shock spooking some of the others.
"What the hell was that?" Faith asked.
"My last two incendiary grenades." Mathilda pulled her sword free, "Figured it was a case of use them or lose them…"
Willow sat crossed-legged on the floor of Principal Woods' office, holding the Slayer Scythe with both hands, chanting under her breath. The air around the young Wicca started to glow with energy as the incantation reached its apex, her eyes glowing as her hair turned from red to blond.
"Oh. My. Goddess!" She exclaimed, the power running from the scythe, thought her and out into the world, changing it forever.
"So here's the part where you make a choice."
Buffy's words echoed in the mind of every Potential.
"What if you could have that power...now? In every generation one Slayer is born because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule."
Then they felt the rush of pure, primordial power flow through them, invigorating their very being. Hands gripped weapons with renewed courage and conviction. Faith gave Mathilda a sly wink.
"I say we change the rule. I say my power should be our power. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer."
The army of Turok-Han reached the top of the cliff, a literal wall of death.
"Every girl who could have the power will have the power."
The unstoppable force of the charging Turok-Han met the immovable object of the newly activated Slayers.
"Can stand up, will stand up."
Power untapped since the dawn of history resonated out of the Hellmouth, covering the globe. In every country on Earth, the remaining Potentials felt what it was to be the Slayer, and it changed everything.
"Slayers, every one of us."
The Slayers, humanity's only line of defence against the darkness, met The First's army head on.
"Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?"
"You are a Goddess!" Kennedy grinned at the radiant Willow.
"Get this to Buffy." Willow held out the scythe to her lover before collapsing on the floor, overwhelmed by the flow of positive magic that poured through her.
Mathilda swung her sword through a wide arc, decapitating a Turok-Han and a Bringer with little apparent effort. She had never felt the need to learn sword fighting before, but she found that her experience with knives helped immensely.
Kennedy bounded down the steppes and threw the scythe to Buffy, who grabbed it out of the air and staked a Turok-Han in one fluid movement. She kept going, hoping that they could hold their own until Spike's medallion did whatever the hell it was meant to do.
She didn't see the Bringer get behind her with a sword, but she felt the pain as the long blade was pushed straight through her body. She fell to her knees, tossing the scythe to Faith before she collapsed on the floor.
Faith caught the scythe, dropping her own axe, and tried to get to the fallen Slayers side. But the Turok-Han seemed to sense she was the biggest threat, and concentrated their attack on her. Her last act before they overwhelmed her was to throw the scythe into the air.
Mathilda caught it with one hand, wielding her sword with the other. She stabbed a Bringer through the chest with the sword, her newly enhanced strength burying the first few inches of the blade into the rock wall behind the daemon, pinning it in place so she could decapitate it with the scythes axe-head.
Buffy was back on her feet, working through the pain, and Mathilda tossed her back her weapon without thinking twice. Turok-Han went flying as Faith erupted like a landmine; all the rage and anger that had been building up inside her during her prison stay blubbering over.
Spike screamed in pain and surprise as his medallion started to glow with power.
To Be Continued…
This chapter was written under the influence of beer, so it may seem a little wired.
I will say this in my defence: I was very, very, very drunk at the time…
Beer: helping no-talent hacks look like real writers since 1811