A/N: ***grins and waves*** Hiya, I guess after the cliffhanger I left last week ya'all are itching to find out what happens to our favourite blonde heroine right? Well, joy is yours! Here it is chapter twenty four!
To A Watcher: I used to read Lovecraft, but then it got to depressing, even for me. I mean, I have school for that, right?
To DiscordantDragon: Here we run into my dilemma. I would make the chapters longer, but then it would take me longer to post. Last time I made long chapter people lost interest in it so I decided to right shorter chapters. It's mostly the cliffhanger that's probably bothering you. No worried, it doesn't happen often.
To Mika: Oooh, I got so much cruel joy from making Buffy lay it done—and hard I might add—on that sorry ass Kelly. I hate him like one hates… um… insert your most hated person here!
To Sparky24: I hate cliffhangers to, but all you authors must admit they're fun to write! Always leave them wanting more, I say.
Chapter Twenty Four- Dark Places
Buffy closed her eyes for a brief second before opening them once more. She was so tired of these battles, her body was already aching, but her face held none of the emotions that swirled inside of her. Instead, she still erect, the perfect picture of the Slayer.
The Tora-Kone rushed at them, much like a scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Their fangs were barred, their bodies moving with immortal power. They were inhuman; they felt no emotion, no tiredness. They were focused only on their enemies before them.
And those enemies, our heroes, were almost sagging against one another. The human were human, mortal, and very tired. But they were also very strong. Their eyes burned with a light of power, a strength that Anya the ex-vengeance demon had once said made her believe in them.
"When it's something real, they fight. I mean, they're lame morons to keep fighting, but they do. They… they never quit." The fallen heroine had once remarked to Andrew the demon summoner the day before she died.
And fight they did. Kitty and Lance, working together. He slashing the Tora-Kone as Kitty kept phasing them through the enemies trying to kill them. Jean and Scott, a perfect team. Jean holding the vampires in the air and Scott blasting them into dust. Tabitha and Xander, a deadly duo. Tabitha using her bombs to slow the leeches down and Xander using his bow and arrow, and the stake, to dust them. Willow and Faith, reluctant partners. Willow fraying any vampires that came close to Faith and Faith doing the same with Willow, using only her stake. Ori and Pyro, bringing fire into play. Ori summoning all her fire and Pyro multiplying it, strengthening it. Kurt and Amanda, proving useful allies. Kurt staking his vampire foe while Amanda guarded his backside. And Buffy and Colossus, the strongest warriors. Buffy standing up to Colossus's back, slashing at her enemies, Colossus plunging his sword into a Tora-Kone.
Even the civilians managed to try to defend themselves. Duncan was using his feet to keep the vampires away from the innocents when Buffy or no one else could defend them. For a moment, in the battle, they forgot that they hated each other.
But, as is the problem with most humans, they got tired quickly and they had not even made a dent in the demon's numbers. No matter how many they took down, the Tora-Kone would just keep on coming.
And Buffy knew this, as did anyone who was fighting. It was obvious that survival was something that they would not achieve. They would not win this battle; they would not live to see the sun.
Buffy felt frustration well inside her. After all this, after all she had done, they wouldn't survive. They were fighting a losing battle. It wasn't fair…
A Tora-Kone Buffy hadn't seen before lunged at her, going for her venerable neck. Colossus saw this. He lunged at Buffy and pushed her out of the way just as the Tora-Kone sunk its teeth deep into the soft flesh of his neck.
But before the vampire could even get the taste of what the mutant's blood, Buffy was moving towards it. She swung her scythe and lopped the vampire's head off, her teeth bared in a snarl.
"Are you alright?" Buffy shouted over the rush of battle.
"Yeah!" Colossus answered, shaking his head. Their eyes, blue and dark brown, meet and something passed between them. They nodded to one another and stood up. Their backs pressed against one another's and they tried to fight.
But now the Tora-Kone were overpowering them. They were pushing the humans towards the bleachers. Buffy's bones were aching, as she was sure everyone else's were, and all she wanted to do was give up. However, her Slayer blood would not allow that. She was forced to keep fighting.
And just as all seemed lost, as the Tora-Kone were moving in for their fetal attack, something happened that turned the tables on the vampires…
The bleachers, which they had been forced to fight besides, suddenly collapsed on its side. The front legs of the metal slid to the side and landed upon the millions of Tora-Kone barring down on Buffy and her crew.
Then the winds and rains started up…
Powerful wind, gale force, whipped the blonde hair around Buffy's face and it started to unbalance the Tora-Kone. Then the rain started to pelt against them, but only the Tora-Kone. The vampires of Jake growled at the sky and moved in retreat, unable to stand the force of the rain and wind.
Buffy turned and found herself looking at a Logan, known to the X-Men as Wolverine, and a dark-skinned woman she had never seen before. The woman's eyes were eggshell white and she floated in the air, held by the wind. Her platinum blonde hair whipped around her face as she rose gloved hands into the air.
"Storm!" Kitty cried happily besides Buffy.
"Let's go!" Logan shouted, his metal weapons sticking out from his knuckles, "Before they come back!"
Buffy nodded, "Alright everyone! Follow Logan!" The man of metal turned and made a v-line for the woods. Everyone, including Storm, followed Logan as he ducked under branches and rushed into the woods.
Once they were deep enough into the woods, Buffy allowed everyone to slow down. Her manners kicking in, she hurried up to the man and woman that had just saved her and the people she had been trying to rescue's lives.
"Hey thanks, Logan, never though you'd risk you're life for these people." She grinned at Logan's scold, "And thank you… ah… Storm, wasn't it?"
The woman who controlled the weather smiled, "Yes, I'm called Storm, though my real name is Ororo. It might be easier for you called me Storm."
Buffy felt herself grin even despite her exhaustion over the battle, "Wow. I've never had this many allies before… expect the Potentials, but they really weren't there by choice…"
Behind her Xander and Tabitha were having a goofy chat about Tabitha being part of the X-Men.
"So the Institute, it's kinda like a Hogwarts? You know, Professor X is like Dumbledoor and… ah… who's Harry Potter? I guess Scott could be considered your 'Harry Potter' but he doesn't have black hair, though he does do the glasses nicely. And who's Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley? Jean? Evan? And who's Kitty… wait, I'm rambling again, aren't I? Listen, you gotta tell me when I do that."
Tabitha laughed and slipped her arm into Xander's, "I like when you ramble. You're so passionate in everything you do."
Xander felt the heat on his cheek, "That's me. Always passionate… I could say a passionate speech about a nail and it would be… really boring…" Helpless the young man trailed off causing Tabitha to laugh again.
"You're so sweet." She told him and Xander grinned a purely male grin.
Off to their side, Ori was still weak and exhausted from using her powers so much. She leaned against Pyro, who was looking pretty worse for wear as well, and sighed deeply.
"When I get back to the Institute I'm going to sleep for days." Ori mumbled, "Sidney will wake me up, though. She's gotten really serious about this whole 'save the world' thing."
Pyro looked over at his blonde friend… er, whatever… and said, "Really? And you're not into the whole 'save the world' thing?"
Ori looked up at him through lazy, half-closed eyes but she managed to make that tired-look look sultry, "Oh, I am so totally into it, but I try to take a leisure approach to the thing. After all, panicking over it isn't going to help is it?"
Pyro smiled down at her, handsome despite his tiredness, and answered, "I think that way, too. We've a lot in common, luv."
Ori blushed and lowered her head, letting her blonde locks fall in front of her face, hoping it hid the red of her cheeks.
Jean and Scott stood behind Ori and Pyro looking just as tired as the fire duo. But there were smiles on their faces as their hands entwined. They didn't speak of the connection between them, it was just there.
"You did well today." Scott said, not mentioning how scared he had been when Jean had fallen into the Tora-Kone. That was something he'd have to analyze first and think over. Then he'd talk to Jean.
Jean felt the happiness bloom in her heart at Scott's words. She knew she had done well, had fought bravely, but hearing the X-Men leader say it made her heart soar. Instead of saying all her emotions she simply said, "Thanks."
And then Jean and Scott feel into silence.
Kitty and Lance were at the back of the pack, keeping an eye on the civilians, besides Kurt and Amanda. Amanda was in Kurt arms and they murmured sounds of pleasure to one another, resembling the poignant scene in Stephen King's The Shining when Wendy recalled her lovemaking with Jack.
But Kitty and Lance spoke no words to one another, though they did glance at each other every now and again when they thought the other wasn't looking. But they didn't speak. There was too much going on, to much to explain. And Lance wouldn't have spoken to Kitty even if she had been brave enough to start a conversation. He was still stuck on the idea that he didn't want to be near Kitty, when it was obvious he did.
And this went on for almost a half an hour.
During that half an hour, Buffy had started frowning because she couldn't shake the feeling that they were being followed. She could hear the snap of twigs off to the side and movements, human movements.
Besides her, Logan raised his head up in the air a little and sniffed. He lowered his head and growled, "We're being followed."
Buffy turned her head and looked over at him, "How long have you known?"
"About fifteen minutes. I just wanted to make sure I was hearing correctly." Logan said in his deep bad-boy voice.
Buffy turned her head and said haughtily, "I've known for twenty minutes." she couldn't help but feel a little smug ay having one over Logan.
"I've known for twenty five minutes." Colossus said besides Buffy, "I thought you know but weren't going to say anything."
"My God," Buffy said in awe as Logan started grumbling, "you are truly amazing! After all this is done I'm going to have to recruit you for my team. How do you feel about Cleveland?"
Colossus just shrugged, but he felt a little odd because he knew that if Buffy had really asked him to join her in Cleveland, he would've. Shaking his head, he watched as Faith moved over to the Slayer.
"B, we got company." Faith said, "Woods behind us."
Buffy smiled, "Yes, I'm well aware of that, Faith. I'll handle it." And then she was moving through the woods in such a quick motion Pietro would've been jealous. She lunged forward and grabbed something behind a tree. There was a scream and a figure was thrown to the floor. It raised its hands to its face to protect itself as Buffy straddled him and raised her fisted hands.
Everyone moved over to watch as the Slayer stopped, blinked and then lower her hands with annoyance. She glared at the figure beneath her.
"Andrew." She said angrily, "What in the name of Hell are you doing here?"
Sheepishly Andrew looked around at everyone who was staring at him and then held up a camera, "Making a historical document of the Slayer and her exploits?" He said helplessly.
"I thought I told you to lay off with that." Buffy said, dragging him to his feet.
Andrew looked at the Slayer with his big blue eyes and said, "The world has a right to know! And now since it looks like another war… I should document this! The survivors will want to know!"
Xander moved over to Buffy, with Tabitha at his side, and gave Andrew a glare, "Why is it you always show up when we need you the least?"
Willow, too, was going up to Andrew, but she didn't say anything. She still hated this young man. He was the last living connection to Warren, the man who had killed Willow's true love Tara. She would never forgive Warren or anything of his friends, Jonathon and Andrew, for what they had done.
Andrew squirmed under Willow glare and Faith, sensing an eruption from their normally cool redheaded friend, said, "B, no use crying over spilt milk. Shouldn't we get back to the Institute?"
Buffy sighed, "You're right. Let's go." Giving one more glare at Andrew she started moving again. Everyone had no choice but to follow.
Andrew grinned to himself and clutched his camera to his breast. He had the perfect shots! He had Buffy fighting, and that was always great, but he also had really nice shots of the mutants and blooming romance. Buffy and that big guy, the redhead and the man with the shades, Xander and the blonde, the petite girl in the back with the tall boy, the other blonde with the red/blonde guy and the blue skinned man with the dark woman. It was like a soap opera!
Happier then words could describe, Andrew stood and trotted after Buffy.
Yes, I've reintroduced Andrew. I just can't help. He's annoying as hell but I love the little geek! He's great comic relief. Anyway, stay tuned for chapter twenty five, Strange Visitors. Buffy's team is growing bigger and bigger and now some new characters have shown up… but what they're DEMONS!?
"Remember, Lone Star, evil will always triumphant because good is dumb."
-Lizzy Rebel