Disclaimer: I own the name of the Coven, but I own none of its members, its villains, or their allies
Feedback: Very much on the 'must-have' list
Samyo: That's a relief; believe me, it was a real pain coming up with a reason for why these guys would work together…
Sean Malloy-1: A sequel isn't being planned at the moment, but maybe when I'm finished, I'll think about it
DarkAngelofDreams: Glad to hear it
Devil: Sorry, none of those guys will be here (If nothing else, Daredevil and Elektra aren't supernatural, and Van Helsing's a bit too far in the past to be involved in this crisis)
The Coven of Reformed Supernaturals
"So, where's this fortress we're breaking in to?" Hellboy asked, looking curiously over at Leo.
"Down in a kind of 'borderland' between Earth and the Underworld," Leo explained, scratching the back of his neck idly as he looked over at his new friends. He always found shape-shifting slightly uncomfortable; he couldn't shake the feeling that he looked like he a kid playing dress-up with his brother's clothes, even if his body had changed as well as his clothes. "Our adversary decided it was probably for the best if he didn't position himself anywhere obvious in those options; we'd have a better chance of breaking into a fortress if it was on Earth, and there are those in the Underworld who may not be too happy with his attempts to take over."
"Sensible enough," Spike shrugged, standing up and flexing his shoulders. "So, how do we get there?"
"Cole," Leo said, indicating his friend. "He'll shimmer you, Illyria, Blade and Constantine into the fortress, and then come back for me, Angel, Batman and Hellboy; if you guys run into trouble, we'll want to save our strongest fighters for last rather than hit them with everything we've got at once, and I need to come in with a being with a great capacity for evil or the good nature of my powers might be detected."
"Nice idea," Angel said, before looking around at the other members of the Coven. "Those of you going in first, remember to stay alert; if they take you by surprise, you'll be in trouble. We don't know what we'll be encountering in there, but if you encounter anything, don't kill it unless you have to; we may need information."
Constantine looked curiously over at Angel. "No offence, but who put you in charge?" he asked the vampire.
Angel blinked in surprise; it was almost as though he hadn't fully processed what he was doing. He looked over at Constantine and shrugged.
"Nobody really," he said. "I have to apologise; I'm just so used to being in charge at home I forgot that wasn't the case here." He looked around at the other members of the Coven and sighed. "Sorry about that, everyone."
"Don't worry about it," Blade shrugged, raising his sword experimentally and taking a couple of brief practice swings. Nodding in approval, he slid the sword back into his scabbard and looked back up at Angel. "The way I hear it, you're the most experienced of all of us; Hellboy and I are strictly 'hit first' kinda guys, Leo's more of a pacifist than anything else, Spike, Constantine and Cole are a fair bit younger than you, and Batman and Illyira…"
He shrugged, and looked over at the two in question. "Well, no offence on you guys, but, personally? I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you.
"If I was human," he added as an afterthought.
Batman nodded casually. "Nobody blames you for that, Blade," he said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he was trying to look. "I do not fully trust myself at times; I do not expect others to trust me enough to follow my orders in a combat situation. I am satisfied to follow Angel's leadership, if that is what we are doing."
Hellboy nodded. "Pretty much the same over here," he said, smiling slightly as he glanced over at Angel.
"I've been pretty much doing it for the past year; might as well keep it up," Spike said casually. He glanced over at Illyria. "Blue?"
Illyria looked harshly over at Spike. "I shall not tolerate being treated as a mere foot soldier, half-breed!" she yelled at him briefly, before calming down slightly as she turned back to Angel. "However, I have fought with you now, vampire, and, if pain will be caused to the demons, I shall be prepared to fight according to your requests."
"Um… thanks," Angel said, uncertain what else he could say to something like that. He looked over at Constantine, Cole, and Leo. "How about you three?"
Constantine shrugged casually, and Leo and Cole nodded in agreement.
Blade looked back at Angel. "Congratulations; you're leader."
Angel swallowed, looked around at the others, and nodded.
"If you're all willing to follow… I'm willing to lead," he said, eventually.
He looked over at Illyria, Blade, Spike, Cole and Constantine. "You're up first; be careful."
Cole smiled as he shifted into Belthazor. "We'll be careful, Angel," he said. "It's part of the job description."
He looked over at Leo. "Anything I should be aiming at?"
"Just follow your instincts," Leo said. "Our foe set up a massive summoning spell that acts as a 'lighthouse' for any demon in existence; they're drawn there almost instinctively."
"Well, that's something," Belthazor smiled, as Spike and Blade placed their hands on his shoulders, Constantine and Illyria grabbing their hands. He closed his eyes, raised his head up…
And, almost instantly, the five of them were standing in a large dark room that almost resembled a large boardroom.
Blade looked around the room appraisingly, and sighed.
"This is where demons hang out?" he asked Belthazor casually. "I was expecting something a bit hotter."
"They exaggerate the heat aspect of Hell," Belthazor said, shrugging casually. "Generally only the higher-ranking demons live in the hot areas; the rest of Hell is traditionally fairly cool. It's one of the driving forces for demons to commit evil acts; the more agents of good they kill, the closer to the main heat they get, and the more enjoyable their time down here becomes."
"Really?" Constantine said, looking curiously over at Belthazor. "That's one more difference between our worlds; where I come from, Hell was always burning up regardless of where you went in it."
Belthazor smiled. "Yeah, that's the multiverse for you, I guess," he said, shrugging slightly. "After all, where's the fun in having alternate universes if they have too much in common when you look closely?" He sighed. "Anyway, I'd better get going; the sooner everyone's here, the sooner I can get home."
He closed his eyes and faded away into the air.
Blade blinked at that, but shrugged it off and pulled out his sword, checking over it in case it needed cleaning.
"Nice weapon," Constantine said approvingly, nodding his head at the sword in the dark-skinned hybrid's hand.
Blade smiled slightly. "Thanks," he said. He shrugged. "It's mostly all I really use in a combat situation; as I said, I'm not much of a strategic thinker. I'm more of a 'hit it till it dies' kind of guy, to be perfectly honest."
"There is nothing wrong with that," Illyria said, shrugging slightly. "I do that fairly often myself; it has never gotten me killed yet."
"Yeah, no offence, Blue, but it nearly did with Hamilton, if my memory's accurate," Spike put in, looking over at his blue-skinned ally casually. "You just hit away at that bastard when you two dooked it out, and what happened? He beat you into a bloody pulp."
Illyria glared over at Spike. "Do not presume to taunt me, half-breed!" she yelled at him.
"Oh for cripes sake, what are you going to do; kill me?" Spike asked, looking over at her casually. "I mean, be realistic here, Blue; you're stuck in the heart of the base of a guy who'd probably be happy to see you killed, your powers are nothing like what they used to be, and there's only about nine of us to stop these buggers? Take me out, and your chances of survival aren't that great; at least when I'm here, that means slightly less people'll be focusing on taking you down."
Illyria looked like she was about to strike Spike regardless, but, in the end, she just turned away from his and stared blankly at a wall as she slumped against a table.
Blade blinked briefly in confusion, and glanced over at Spike.
"What was all that about?" he asked, indicating Illyria. "I thought you two were on the same side?"
"Not really; she's only here because she's got nowhere else to go," Spike said, looking back at Blade. "I mean, she waits millions of years to conquer the planet, and when she wakes up, she finds her army's dust and her original body's gone? Where else would she go; she's hardly operating on her peak when she's like this, you know?"
"Ah," Constantine said, nodding slightly as he looked over at Illyria. "Being human limits her abilities?"
"Limits?" Spike asked, smiling slightly. "Johnny, old boy, if we hadn't drained off her power, she'd have destroyed her body! She was packing so much of a wallop that she could've destroyed the continent if we hadn't stopped her!"
"It was the tetonic plate," Illyria said, looking back at him harshly. "If you must insult me, half-breed, insult me using the correct information."
"Insult? Hey, I thought you'd take it as a compliment that I acknowledge how much damage you can do!" Spike protested, raising his hands defensively. "You know, Blue-"
But before he could finish, the air shimmered, and the other five members of the Coven appeared in the room.
Angel blinked as he glanced around the room, and shrugged.
"Well, it's an improvement over the last time I was in Hell," he said, trying to sound casual about the whole thing.
"What?" Constantine asked, looking over at Angel. "You've been in Hell before?"
Looking at Constantine's suddenly apprehensive expression, Angel raised his hands placatingly.
"I assure you I didn't die and come back from there," he said, trying to reassure Constantine's nerves. "It was just that this portal to Hell had been opened and the only way to stop it was my blood. I had to be thrown into the portal to save the world, and was eventually restored to this world by…"
He stared up at the ceiling for a brief moment, before shrugging and saying, "…by something that I still haven't identified, but which I hope to figure out someday."
He looked around at the Coven. "Anyway, now that we're all here, I think we need to get down to business. If we're going to find this villain, we'll need to divide our resources to get a better idea of the situation."
Looking around at the others, he began to issue orders. "Leo, Cole, Constantine; in terms of physical strength, you three are our weakest links, so you'll all go in separate groups. Leo, you're with me and Hellboy; Constantine, you're with Spike and Batman; Cole, you go with Blade and Illyria. In the event of a problem, Batman, Leo and Cole will try and transport your groups away as fast as possible..."
He looked over at Batman. "You can fly, right? I mean, I know our Dracula can, but did he-?"
Batman held out a hand to stop Angel. His eyes briefly blinked, and then two large, bat-like wings sprouted from his shoulders, stretching out to almost twice the length of his arms.
He looked back at Angel, and nodded.
"Yes," he said simply to the other vampire. "I can fly."
Angel nodded back at Batman, and then turned to the others. "In the event of an attack, you guys do what you can, but if you get confronted by something that you can't handle yourselves, do what you can and contact the rest of us before it goes too far. If you find the main villain, don't confront him unless you have to; just call for assistance and wait for the rest of us to get there."
He pulled out a dagger from his jacket and twirled it briefly in his hand before grabbing the hilt. "We're facing a foe with a potentially unknown army behind him; be careful if you tackle anything."
The other members of the Coven nodded, and then, dividing into their three allocated groups, they headed off into the corridors linked up to the room they had found themselves in.
From the centre of the fortress, a man sitting in a large throne, and dressed in a long black robe, blinked open his eyes and smiled.
"They're here," he said, turning to look at the figure beside him. "And they've got him, just as I was expecting."
"You're sure?" the other man said, raising a curious eyebrow at the man in the throne.
"Oh, I know him well…" the figure in the throne said, smiling slightly. Then his face became emotionless again and he looked over at the figure. "They've split into three groups; you'll be going after his one, but leave the whitelighter's group alone; I'd like to be sure of some interesting competition when he gets here."
He smiled slightly. "I'd like to see Leo explain this kind of omission to his new friends…"
"And what about the third group?" the other man said, looking curiously at the figure on the throne. "Who'll be handling them?"
The man on the throne smiled as he looked over at the other figure.
"You'll find out soon enough," he said casually. Then he waved his arm in a dismissive manner. "Now get going, will you, Barbas?"
The Demon of Fear growled slightly at that comment, but turned around and shimmered out of the room.
The figure smiled as he stared at his hand, flexing his fingers experimentally.
"Soon, Belthazor…" he said, thoughtfully to himself. "Soon, we shall meet again."
He grinned widely. "And this time, things will be very different."