A/N Thanks for the great reviews. To Darklight, you know you can't keep any good slayer out of Sunnydale. To Allen Pitt, I more so just wanted to have a little fun, by having there be three slayers at one time. I mean wasn't it just convenient how the first showed up in season three. At that time, Marie would have still been alive and so was Faith and Buffy.
And the First is somehow partly connected to the Slayer line. So by there being three, that gave it a foot hole to step into our reality. But because Marie died, because Xander wasn't there to help save her from Raccoon and the nuke it lost it's foothole and had to wait for another oppurtunity. Buffy's death and resurrection.
Also you have to remember that I said I was basing this fic off the game and the movie. In the game, Nemesis' primary objective was to eliminate all S.T.A.R.S. members. And seeing that Xander just happened to have something with that insignia on it, Nemesis decided to attack him.
Chapter 4
S.T.A.R.S. pt.1
"Everybody get down!" Xander screamed out as he saw the missles coming. Quickly pushing Rose to the ground, he ducked himself as the first, then the second missle hit. It was an earth shattering blast, that nearly knocked him off what was left of the side of the building.
Nearly being knocked unconcious, he looked through the haze of fire, that the missles had caused, and saw that Nemesis was slowly moving away through the sea of the dead, knocking and killing anything that dared get in his way.
'He probably think's you're dead.' the Hyena whispered to him.
'The question is why did he want to kill me in the first place?' Xander asked of it.
'How am I supposed to know?' the Hyena mentally shrugged in Xander's mind. 'I'm just as voice.'
With a roll of his eyes and a wince, Xander rolled over and saw that the others were groaning and trying to sit up.
"Are you guy's okay?" Xander asked as he successfully stood to his feet.
"Just, peachy." Marie said with a wince of her own, as she got off from on top of Rose. She had seen the missles coming and with reflexes she didn't even know she had, she jumped on top of the little girl to protect her with her body. "You okay, sweetie?" she asked as she helped Rose to her feet.
"Yeah." Rose replied as she brushed off her clothes.
"What was that thing?" Marie asked as she walked up to Xander.
"I don't know." he replied as he cleared some wooded debris off of his discarded duffle. "But I don't want to stick around to find out." as soon as those words left his mouth, another huge explosion rocked the building sending a huge fireball billowing out of the roof access door.
"What's going on?" Rose asked as the first wave of smoke started to waft over towards them.
"We were storing alcohol and wine barrels on the top floor." Marie answered over the loud roar of the fire. "That thing must have hit them when he fired off those missles."
As if to prove her theory another explosion occured, crumbling the far left side of the building.
"What do we do now?" Marie asked as she saw the fire slowly but surely devouring the club.
"We can't go back down there." Xander said as he swallowed hard and walked over to the far left side of the building. "We have to jump. There's another building next to us that's a floor shorter then us. It's only a ten foot drop down on the building."
"Or more like fifteen. Plus we have an eight foot gap to jump across." Marie said as she walked up next to him. "We'll break our necks if we try to make that jump."
"What other choice do we have?" he asked. "Sit here and wait to burn to death? You'll be fine anyway, you're a slayer."
"But..."
"No but's." Xander cut her off. " I know that we just met, but I need you to trust me." he said as he grabbed her around the arms softly.
"I...I..trust you." Marie said after a moment. There was something about his eyes that made him trustworthy. It was just how calm he seemed, how sure of himself.
"Rose, do you trust me?" he asked.
"Yes." she replied without skipping a beat.
"Alright." Xander said as he picked up their bags, walked over to the edge of the building and threw them over to the next one with an audible clunk. "We're gonna have to take a running jump, to avoid falling down the gap between buildings. Marie since you're the strongest, I need for you to piggyback Rose and jump over to the other side."
"What about you?" Marie asked as she crouched down and let the little girl hop on her back. She seemed almost weightless.
"I'll be right behind you." he replied as some smoke started to enter his lungs, causing him to cough. "Now go!"
Taking another look at her new friend and then down at the opposing building, she took about eight steps back and ran in a virtual blur. Making it to the edge of the building and with a slight scream from herself and Rose, she jumped and to her amazement landed on the other roof with the grace of a cat.
Seeing that they made it and knowing that he only had one shot at this, Xander backed back almost the same distance and took off in a run. As he made the jump, something in his mind told him that he wasn't going to make it.
Halfway over the gap, he started to fall. Stretching his arms out to try to grab the ledge of the other building, he missed, but his arm was grabbed by Marie's dainty hands. With a little grunt, she used her slayer strength and helped him over the side, where he fell on the roof in a heap breathing heavily.
"Thank you." Xander wheezed out as he sat up. Before Marie could comment, another explosion occured, knocking the neon sign off the side of the strip club. Standing to his feet, he watched as it fell upon a mass of zombies on the street. He would forever remember the awful aroma of burning flesh and the howling of the walking dead.
"Come on." Xander said as he scooped up his duffle bag and his shotgun. "We can use the fire as a distraction, to get away."
"Where are we going?" Marie asked as she picked up her pistol, handed Rose her backpack with her clothes in it, and retrieved their food bag.
"We're going through the sewers." Xander said as he glanced at her for a second and then at the fire escape of the building.
Three Hours Later
After awhile the trio had to come out of the sewers, because of a dead end and as they reached the surface they found out was that the city was like a virtual maze. And what made it even worse was that they had to make a few detours, because of the damaged parts of the city. They had to go through an infested basketball court, another alley, and a parked bus that had reeked from the sprawled corpses inside.
But to there amazement and joy, they had little resistance in the way of their zombie problem. Finally making it to the mall, they all let out a sigh of relief as they entered it through the back. They were especially happy since it seemed to be zombie free.
"Why do we have to wear these things again?" Marie asked as she twirled around in her all black duster. She wasn't complaining about it because of it's weight, but rather because it was summer time and very hot.
"Because they're bite resistant." Xander said as he walked up to her in his matching duster. "See look." he said as he bit on her coat covered arm. She felt a little pressure, but it seemed as though his teeth couldn't penetrate the thick leather.
"So are you almost done gathering weapons?" Marie asked.
"Yeah, I found a few more guns, tons of ammo, strangle wire, I've even improvised on a few things. What about you?" he asked, only for her to hold up a collaspable black hunting bow, a bag of arrows, and a machete.
"What's up with the Robin Hood act?" Xander asked as he cracked a real smile, for the second time since this nightmare.
"I just don't feel comfortable with guns." Marie informed him. "Beside's I thought that we could conserve ammo like this."
"Still though." Xander said getting serious. "I think that you should still carry a gun." he said as he handed her his shotgun. "Just in case."
After handing her the shotgun and three boxes of shells, Rose ran up to them, with a cute little dark pink duster, breathing heavily and with a worried look on her face.
"Xander, Marie come quick." she said panting. "I found something."
After following the excited little girl into the main lobby, they found that the skylight had been busted through and a large metal crate sat in the middle of the room.
"What the hell is going on?" Xander muttered to himself as he looked in the box and saw weapons of all kinds in the crate. What was wierd about them was that they were impossibly bigger than what normal weapons should look like. They looked as if they belonged to a giant.
Suddenly they heard a loud bang at the main mall windows. As they looked up they saw three zombies pressed against the glass of the window eyeing them hungrily. Their disintegrating and bloody faces smeared the glass.
They clawed mindlessly at the window, their ashy, ravaged faces, spoke of the horrors of their deaths. And from across the street, Xander saw dark shapes shambling out into the open.
"It's okay guy's." Xander said as he put his arms out and pushed him and the others back. "That's bullet proof glass. There's no way they can break..."
Before he could finish his sentence, a zombie flew towards the window with the speed of a bullet. As it exploded in a horrible vision of gore, against the window, a horrible shrieking sound filled the air. Looking up in shock at what had thrown the zombie with such great force, they saw a hulking figure toss the other zombies away as if they were rag dolls.
For a moment Xander thought that it was the creature, that had destroyed the club earlier, but as it stepped into the light he saw that it was something else all together. It stood almost six feet tall, with long arms that dragged to the ground, glowing blood red eyes, patches of grey fur all over it's body, and the bloody and mutated face of an ape.
Letting out another ungodly roar, the zombie ape started banging on the window, with enough brute force to put spider web like cracks on it.
"What the hell is that?" Marie asked with wide eyes.
"They must have had a few mutations at the local zoo." Xander said as he grabbed her by the arm. "Now let's go before..."
To late. A shower of glass exploded in the room as the zombie ape let out a howl of victory and quickly entered the room. The thing tilted its head back, closed it's eyes, and took in the scents of the air. It smelled fear. Upon seeing the ape Rose let out a whimper, and hearing the noise the creature snapped its head toward her.
She screamed and hid behind Xander, and seeing the movement the deteriorating creature began to slowly run towards them. Followed by a few zombies that slowly shambled into the room.
'Fuck.' was all Xander could think as he took both glocks out of their holsters and opened fire.
TBC...
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