This is the alley. This is our alley. It writhes with the screams of warriors and dies with the blood of many. The demons are brave but our guys are braver. Our guys are the warriors; the demons are mere soldiers. Their battle cries and their blood are what make this our alley. In their presence they give this alley to us. They give this piece of the earth back. It's the least they can do. Human or otherwise, outnumbered or not, they are still fierce, still committed, and still ready.
Gunn was the first. He was struck down like any would be considering that wound. He fought though. God, did he fight. Little more than ten minutes left and he still could have taken a small army. Nearly did.
What was that? Did the very ground they fight on shake as Gunn left this world? Spike felt it. Or maybe it was his imagination. He could never be sure in times like this.
"Did you feel that?" he called to Illyria as they tore through the demons six at a time.
"Shut up and fight," she replied deadpan in a way only she could. She punctuated her sentence with the sickeningly wet crack of a random head coming of a random neck by her hand. Pretty, huh? She moves off.
I carry
the weight of the world as the past is unfurled, but I won't stop to
wonder.
Going through this life on my own made me as cold as a
stone.
I'm a ship going under.
And I'd tell you this, but I
don't know how.
I'm caving in and I'm falling out and I can't
resist
And I can't rebound with the weight of the world as the
world falls down.
Wow, that's loud. You'd think the kid would be deaf by now, but he's not. You'd think he'd be dead from breathing toxic fumes due to his room being a wasteland, but he's okay. The rest of the house isn't like this. It's warm and clean and looks like a magazine. The smells of roast and gravy and the various finally reach his nose. He shuts off the stereo and bounds down the stairs towards the dining room. He stops in front of the desk in the hall to check his hair. Teenagers are insane like that. Suddenly, the ground shakes. The metal candleholders on the desk shiver and clank, pictures fall off walls, and there's the slightest chance it's an earthquake. As soon as it started, it stopped. The boy looks around stunned. Don't we live in Mississippi? Have we ever had an earthquake before? What just happened?
The rain stings his eyes like needles but he's numb to it now. A hundred years of fighting does that to a guy. As he rips and thrashes through the din of animals in armor he mutters to himself, "Bleeding Angel and his bloody plans. Can't die twice, oh no, I gotta die again," he says with a grunt and the thunk that comes with hitting a jaw line. He shakes his head with a sigh, "I'm getting to old for this." It's almost morning now but he doesn't care. Reinforcements are here, so he was told but he hasn't seen any. For the past hour he's been utterly alone fighting through the mass. But then again he's been fighting alone all his life, why stop now. If you're looking for fun, there's death, there's glory and sod all else, right? It's been a long night and it only intends to get longer. Well, in theory.
As quick as you can say "Bob's your uncle", Spike's blindsided. They're on him at a frenzied pace. They need to make sure he doesn't get back up. They need to make sure he's dust. Spike kicks and claws his way up, his hands bloodied from ripping at various appendages. Let's not talk about the various. He's pushed, punched, thrown. A sword spins through the night. It's slick with rain and glinting from the alley lights. Spinning turns to swinging. Spike knows. He can feel it. He feels it in his blood like anyone does when they're about to die. That moment of clarity, of peace. That thought, "I wonder if Angel ever got the dra--."
"Something wrong, kitten?"
"What? Oh, no I just felt a shake."
"Just a little seismic shock, sugar pie."
"Well, yeah but still. Jesus, Lorne, they do something new to your makeup?"
Lorne bends down frantically and checks himself in the mirror. He's pleased to find it's the same old Lornikins that was there before, not a hair out of place. He does look like the perfect showman in his sequined suit and glitter on his face. He looks back up at Trista, not amused.
"That wasn't funny," he says putting his hand on his hip and taking a big gulp of his sea breeze.
"Oh, I'm going to actively differ that," Trista replies with a wicked grin on her face. It's her favorite pastime to come and give Lorne mini-heart attacks before his shows. Although Lorne isn't exactly the most intimidating creature in the world, Trista's confident demeanor is still a slight paradox considering she stands only 5'2". She may be a tiny thing with bouncy natural blond hair that comes to her shoulders and uncharacteristically curvy curves for her size, but she can put a verbal smack down on the biggest man in town, and that's saying something considering this is a pretty big town. It is New York after all.
"You know, I could drop dead right here if you did that again."
Still grinning she replies, "Bonus."
Lorne moves from the mirror and sits on the sofa in his nicely spacious dressing room of the nonprison variety. Lorneytoons is no one's canary this time. He does this for the fun and the stage rush. Well the money too. The green stuff gives the green guy a slight spring in his step. Go figure. It's been all too long since Lorne could just stand and sing and laugh. He deserves it.
Trista moves to him and gives him a kiss on the forehead. "I'm done for the night. Or maybe the week. Maybe even the month. I'm going on a trip."
Lorne throws his hands up in mock praise to the heavens, "Finally she leaves! I can sleep again."
"Hey now. I kept you company all those nights on the phone. You were the insomniac, not me."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he says and then smiles at his use of words. He looks to Trista expectantly but she's not grinning with him. Needless to say, Lorne isn't fazed, "See what I did there?"
She grins slightly and lets out a breath, "I saw." She gathers up her things and smiles at Lorne but this time it's a more reflective smile. It's quieter, less content.
"Later, Lorne," she says as she turns away from him. As she leaves she starts to sing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey."
Watching her leave, Lorne's smile fades.
The alley is still littered with corpses and the smell of death is coming from each and every one. Trista walks through the alley, taking in the scene. She'd only been in L.A. for an hour but knew right where to go. Just follow the stench of death. Trista has been a busy girl, no doubt. Things have a tendency to go that route when one is trying to keep her world in order. It's been weeks of nothing but meetings and problems and misdirection. But she knew that this was the alley. I mean, look at it. It had to be the alley.
She walks through and over the corpses shaking her head and muttering to herself, "It's amazing they can even keep it hidden anymore." She walks to a small clearing where it seems the bodies fell in a diamond. Trista steps into the center of the diamond and takes a breath. The ground seems to fall from under her and not in the run-of-the-mill-cement-breaking kind of way. This ground falls and folds smoothly and silently.
She's standing at the chest-of-drawers rummaging through it. The bedroom she is in, while plain and definitely not luxurious, is neat and pleasant. Trista, clearly only a few minutes from her earth foldage, is beside herself with annoyance. She slams her hands down on the chest and calls to the ceiling, "All the power in the universe and you can't conjure up a freaking pen? I mean, come on, you can make a room from thin air, move the cosmos but I can't write on a post-it? What the hell!" She moves to the small bed as she mutters, "Stupid Powers That Suck."
Suddenly the room begins to shake violently. Not afraid and, frankly, not amused, Trista checks her watch. With a scream of pain, a figure appears in front of her. His body stiff and rigid from said pain, he clenches his fists and doubles over as the silver light that explodes from him shrinks back into his chest. The figure is Spike. Standing. Standing tall. Standing alive… well sort of.
"Hi," says Trista with a slight wave.
Spike turns around in shock, heartily freaking out. If his heart could beat, it'd be doing a hundred yard dash right about now. Suddenly, he gets what's going on. His shoulders go limp, and he relaxes and takes in his surroundings with disdain, if not a hint of annoyance.
"Oh, bloody hell."
Spike paces, running his tongue over his teeth and clearly more than a titch annoyed at this point. Our boy's in rant mode.
"You couldn't leave me dead, could you?"
"Not dead just held--"
"Ol Spike can't be dead five minutes without some insane ponce coming along and breaking loose my own personal hell-- wait, what?"
Trista rises, all business, and calmly says to Spike, "You were supposed to die. You would've died but we intercepted you, held you a bit, brought you back."
Spike just stares at her and after a beat, he raises his left eyebrow and speaks calmly and deadpan, "What in the hell is wrong with you, you. Crazy. Bint."
"Hello? Have you met me? Did I just not make you corporeal in this very room? Were you not dead like five minutes ago?"
"You just said I was intercepted."
"You know what I mean," Trista snaps after she rolls her eyes, "Now sit down and listen."
Spike looks at her. Who does she think she is? She's acting like she's a god when it's clear she's just a tiny little blond. Then he has a thought, sighs and speaks as he sits, "Well would you look at that, another bitty Buffy."
Trista smiles at him and replies wickedly, "You have no idea."
She claps her hands together and addresses him as if she's a cruise ship coordinator, "Now I know this may be hard for you but you need to try to keep the mouth shut," she continues to speak as she starts to slightly pace, "A week ago you and your little compatriots were Bravehearting it out in that alley. You, Spikey boy, were decapitated."
She pauses and comes closer to him. Her tone becomes more somber, more serious, "All of your friends are dead. Gunn, and Angel, and you," she shakes her head in disbelief, "We're still trying to figure out how many it took to take Illyria out."
At this point many things are running through Spike's mind. He didn't really know any of them, he hated Angel, but he was affected. When you're with people so long, you get used to having them around. He feels so… so alone. There's this deep loneliness inside of him and it's like nothing he's ever felt before. From the day he was born until now he was always with someone. Sure, the Scoobies are still alive but are god knows where. Then something crosses his mind. If he was decapitated, killed like everyone else then why was he here?
"What?" is about all he can manage.
"What do you mean what? I figured English would be your first language," Trista replies. She looks at Spike and sees that he's having slight problems with the processing thing. She says to him tentatively, "Do you need me to stop? I mean, I kind of have to keep going, but I could pause. There could be mulling, you could mull."
"Is there some point to this?"
"I'm getting there," says Trista as she moves to a backpack in the corner and takes out a can of Red Bull. She looks to Spike and motions with the can, "You want?"
"I don't drink that crap. Could you get on with it already?"
"Jesus H. Christ! Fine, fine. I'm just trying to make you comfortable."
"I just came back from the dead. Again. I'm far from comfortable, love," Spike replies about as calm as he can. This was all epic and whatnot about ten minutes ago but now Spike's getting a titch bored. He gets up and moves to the wall and leans.
"Alright, alright. I don't think you need to know that the Powers consider you a championic heroe-y thing, yes? Well, the same goes for your buds in L.A. No surprise there either. But here's the twist, in order for our world to function, for it to not hurdle into the sun, metaphorically and literally, we need a certain amount warriors, champions if you will, on this plane of existence. Usually, this isn't a problem. One kicks it, another pops up, it's all good but something happened. We're in a shortage right now and every time one dies, Earth gets the shakes."
"A shortage? What the hell are you on about? Last year you got a double wide delivery of hero in the form of slayers."
"Ah, but being a slayer doesn't always equal champion. Those girls were only potentials for a reason. Potentials have the formula but there's literally only one or two in every generation who has what it takes. There's one that's chosen and the other more than likely ends up fighting for our side anyway. Being a slayer isn't purely genetic, it's also very much mystical and it's very much the inner heart of an individual. Also, there's this, I don't know, thing. It's kind of like the sun only the beam only hits one concentrated area. The slayer. But when you guys did the big slayer awakening, it messed the beam up, spread it too thin so a good amount of would be slayer champions would never know it because they only have like a millionth of the awakening the could've had. Essentially, you screwed us in the long run. In the generations to come, our would be champions end up being sales clerks at Wal-Mart. The universe is freaking out. But we figured out how to make it right."
"Who's 'we'?"
"The Council. You know. Rupert Giles. I've been working with him. Like I was saying, we figured it out. To fix it, we needed a vampire with a soul and I was never a Bangel fan."
"Bang-- what?"
"Look, I made the call and I wanted you because, see, the creamy center of this Oreo cookie of a plan is a simple three letter word: Sex."
