Blood continued to spill from Gunn's wounds, the heavy rain diluting and washing away his precious life source. He panted and looked up to Illyria beside him. The Old One's expression kept shifting. The blank stare she normally wore twinged with near-human pain every now and then. He turned his gaze to Spike and Angel. Angel watched the heavens, his eyes tracking a dragon that lead the army's path.
"Okay," Gunn began. "You take the 30,000 on the left…"
Illyria's steely words assessed his situation. "You're fading. You'll last ten minutes at best."
Angel could hear the army coming at the few heroes. He weighed his advantages and worked out a plan. I could really use Wesley's help. The demons in armor didn't seem to pose much of a threat, but there seemed to be a great deal of them. The dragon would be an entirely different story.
Behind him Gunn was standing. "Then let's make em memorable," he said. Angel could hear the blood in his mouth and smell it. Gunn was the only one who didn't know how close he was to death.
"In terms of a plan?" Spike asked.
Angel took his sword in his grip and turned to Gunn, smiling. "We fight," he stated. He looked to each of the champions in turn.
Spike wasn't satisfied. "Bit more specific?"
Angel smelled the rain soaked night and stepped forward, eyeing up the closest line of soldiers. "Well personally, I'd like to slay the dragon." He paused and readied himself. "Let's go to work."
Before Angel could move Spike rushed past him, letting out a furious battle cry. Angel felt a pair of hands on his shoulders and saw leather above him. Illyria was moving up the field quickly, bounding over the two vampires before ripping a sword out of the closest demon's arms. Angel turned to Gunn. Gunn stood tall, immobile and ready. He held his favorite axe in hand, waiting for the battle to reach him.
Angel raised his sword and charged.
---
"Do you speak English?" the young blond woman asked. "Excuse me?"
Rupert Giles turned around to see an American rushing up the sidewalk towards him. "Er, yes. I do. How can I help you?" The Ex-Watcher looked the woman up and down. Something in his training piqued his awareness of the supernatural.
"I'm looking for Buffy Summers," the woman said quickly. "I need her help. Please, it's urgent! I have a jet waiting for her."
"Please, slow down," Giles said, holding up hand right hand. "What is this concerning? Are you in danger?"
"I'm not, no. But a lot of people are going to die unless I get her to help me. You're Rupert Giles; I've seen drawings of you. You're her Watcher. Please take me to her."
Giles saw her ears twitch and she turned her head to the side. When he followed her gaze, he picked Willow Rosenberg and Kennedy out of the crowd. He reclaimed her attention quickly, "You are correct, yes. Please tell me a little more about this problem." His eyes continued to probe the woman. She had a light scar on her neck.
"Giles!" Willow's bright voice called from behind the woman. "Who is this young pretty lady…with the 'I'm a werewolf'…aura coming out everywhere? Giles, you really shouldn't get involved with werewolves…"
Rupert Giles nodded. He had just placed it before the witch came up and blurted everything out. "Willow, she says she needs our help. I'm sorry…what is your name?"
The woman was still looking at Willow, trying to understand how she could tell so easily. "I'm Nina Ash. Yes, I'm a werewolf but that's not important right now."
"It'll be awful important in six days…" Willow fretted.
"Please, take me to Buffy. It's a matter of life and death."
Giles turned to Kennedy and Willow. "Very well. Kennedy, if you wouldn't mind driving. I'd like to speak with Miss Ash on the way."
"Yeah…and don't shed on the leather…or pee anywhere!" Willow said.
---
Giles knocked on the door and cleared his throat. There was a clamoring on the other side and the door opened a small margin. Beyond that Andrew peeked out, looking past a gold chain. "Give unto me the word of passage…so you may gain passing."
"For God's sake, Andrew, you can see me," said Giles firmly.
"Well it could be a glamour," Andrew whined. "Speaking of glamour…" His eyes moved up Nina's body.
"Open the door Andrew." Willow moved her hand and the gold chain unlatched. Giles pushed the door open and moved into the room. "Buffy!"
Buffy came out of the back room with her hair in a towel. She looked to Giles and gave him a smile. "What's up? Angry demon crash through the Louvre?"
Nina stepped around Giles. "I need your help. Wolfram and Hart has gotten out of control! Angel is trying to take them down, but he's not gonna come out alive. He said he's taking out the members of the Black Thorn and then he's going to fight the Senior Partners."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "That's his fight. Giles, why did you bring her here?"
The Watcher removed his glasses and started to clean them on his handkerchief. "The Black Thorn is an organization that works to bring about the apocalypse. If Angel is indeed successful in taking out their members, it will anger a lot of truly powerful foes. If Angel unleashes the full power of Wolfram and Hart on this world and doesn't destroy them, then the forces of darkness will overtake Los Angeles and begin to spread from there. This isn't about helping Angel, it's about protecting the world."
Buffy walked back to the couch and turned, crossing her arms. "So we can send a few slayers. That would be enough."
"Well," Kennedy replied, "Most of them aren't trained up enough. I dunno if they're good enough for that. I say we got 7 that can hack the big time, tops."
"It will not be enough for you to just send your slayers in for this, Buffy," Giles said. "You need a lot of help to take this down and they will need your leadership."
Willow piped up. "Angel's not doing this alone, you know. He's got Wesley with him . . . and Fred!"
"I do believe Angel called recently about Fred's passing, Willow."
"Oh…I didn't know that."
"She's right though. He's got a lot of people on his side," said Andrew. "He's also got Gunn and S…" Andrew moved his eyes to the side. Buffy turned to Andrew.
"What?"
"Charles Gunn, he's got this axe and is really tough!" Andrew continued.
"And Sssss?"
Willow finished the word. "Spike?" Andrew didn't say anything, but smiled a little foolishly.
Buffy turned away again and took a few steps. She looked to Nina over her shoulder. "You got yourself a Slayer. I'm not going for Angel though. We're going in to stop Wolfram and Hart, then I'm going to beat the hell out of Spike. After that, they're on their own again. Fair?"
Nina nodded.
"Andrew, call up Faith and Xander. Kennedy, round up the Slayers. We're going to war."
---
Illyria held the demon by its neck and glared at it, twisting her sword further into its gut as she lifted it closer to her face. When she felt the life extinguish from it's heart, she hurled him back into the army. She pulled the sword back and whirled it around her, forcing the army out of her range. Beside her Spike continued to pummel the demon in front of him, landing a kick on the demon that came at him, then turning back to pummel the first again. Angel stood before Gunn, cutting through demons as they charged him. Whenever a demon got beyond him, he heard a slick slicing noise as Gunn's axe decapitated each one. They were holding their own in the first wave, but there didn't seem to be an end to the onslaught.
"Spike!" Angel yelled out. "Get a weapon!"
Spike reached up and snapped the demon's neck, then took its battleaxe. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and shook his head dry. "Right! Here comes Spike!" Spike was moving up the alley, cutting his way through the horde, screaming the whole time.
"Illyria! Stay with Spike!" Angel cried out as he thrust his sword into a demon's gut and cut out from there to gash another's chest open. He looked up to see the tuft of blue hair slinking through the battlefield throwing up splashes of blood at each obstacle. "How you holding up Gunn?" Angel called out. There was no reply. Angel could no longer smell a fresh discharge of blood. "Gunn!" He called again more desperately.
Angel hacked again at two more demons. The first stepped aside, but he managed to cut just above the armor on the second demon. The first demon thrust a spear into Angel's gut. Angel gagged and twisted aside, disarming the demon of his spear. He retaliated, slicing the demon's head clean off.
Angel turned to where he last saw Gunn, but saw the young warrior standing tall still. A purple light surrounded his body and closed his wounds. "Never better," said Gunn. His axe ignited with black flames and Charles pushed aside Angel to charge into the Fray.
Angel smelled the air, noticing something beside the blood and brimstone. To call it perfume would cheapen its intoxicating power. This was a natural smell, one that never ceased to dizzy his senses. He looked around, scanning the rooftops. "Buffy?" he asked silently.
He lost sight of his champions in the battle and for a moment, it seemed he was alone, alone with the memory of Buffy's scent. He was imagining the whole thing. Maybe he was already dead. Angel watched the line come closer and raised his sword, ready to charge in.
There was a glint of red and a blur of blonde hair as the nearest demon split in half. More shimmering red cut the next demon through the armor and exposed his heart. It fell to the street, gagging. Arcane chanting piqued Angel's supernatural senses and in another instant, a wave of blue energy swept through the field before Angel, pushing the demons out of the alley. Gunn, Illyria, and Spike turned from where they were fighting and looked to Buffy. They stood in silence for a moment, watching the Chosen Slayer stand tall with her scythe in hand.
"Hell of an entrance, Slayer," Spike said, spitting out blood.
Buffy turned around to Angel. Angel lost sight of the battlefield as his former lover looked at him, albeit sternly. "This isn't about you," she said.
The pain in Angel's gut seemed far away. He smiled to the Slayer, feeling an overwhelming warmth sweep through his body. "I know," he said. "Thanks for the hand."
Up ahead in the fray, a voice called, "Yo, B! Scythe me!" Buffy tossed her weapon up the alley and charged in.
Angel stood in the back of the alley, smiling. "After all of it, she still came for me…" He said. He felt the happiness in him give way to darkness. "Buffy…you don't know how happy you've made me…" he said, extending his fangs.
Illyria hacked through another demon and looked to Spike. "Stop running. We are no better scattered."
"I'm just feelin' the fight, love. Fight tells me to go, I go. Fight tells me –"
"Duck," Illyria said.
"Beg pardon?" Spike asked, right before a club slammed into him and knocked him into the wall. Illyria moved in on the defenseless demon, sword ready for the kill.
Faith stabbed into a demon's face with the stake end of the scythe, then twirled the scythe in her hands to set up a downward cut the length of the opposite demon. She saw another approaching and kicked him back. "Will! Could use some back up!" A bloody slayer flew through the air before her and slammed into a wall, her liquid skull and falling formlessly onto her neck.
"Watch out for the ones with the clubs!" Xander's voice called over the alley, a spurt of fire drowned out the end of the sentence. Buffy looked up to the dragon above. "Willow! Get me up to that dragon!"
From the rooftop, Willow began chanting the levitation incantation and extended her hand towards Buffy. "You've gotten better," noted Angel, slinking up behind her.
Willow smiled, showing her perfect teeth off. "Thanks. Where's Wes? I don't see him down there."
"Dead," Angel said bluntly. "He was killed by a member of the Black Thorn. It's tragic, but it really turns that blue haired girl into a little whirlwind of death."
Willow was already frowning, "I see…" she said. She continued to raise Buffy into the air. Angel watched Buffy speeding towards the dragon. She yelled out and the scythe was tossed into her hand.
"Is that difficult to do?"
"Not if you concentrate," Willow chimed. "Everything just takes a little willpower and then from there it's all magic!"
Buffy continued to ascend, her scythe aimed at the dragon's heart. Angel moved behind Willow. "It's so nice to see her again, I forgot how beautiful she was."
"She's grown up a lot. She and the Immortal have been doing a lot of slaying around Europe. He taught her Tai Chi."
"She didn't have a problem with the whole Wolfram and Hart thing?"
Willow frowned. "Well, she does, but you can explain that now."
"What's there to explain?" Angel asked. "Wolfram and Hart want me for the apocalypse. Buffy knows I'm going to the wrong side. She doesn't know how right she is."
The young witch's mouth dropped open. She hadn't been paying attention to Angel and now realized there was no aura around him where his soul should be. He was right behind her with his arms by her neck and she had only enough time to release her spell and begin to attack the vampire before he had his fangs in her throat.
Angelus bit down savagely, draining the girl's blood in seconds. He felt power surge though him, more than he had when he drank from Hamilton. Her blood was charged with the darkest of magic, he could feel it burning on his lips. "You taste good," Angelus said. He looked up to see Buffy falling through the sky, the dragon diving at her.
"Angel, Angel. After all of that fighting, you failed to see that you were just softening and softening. The more you fought and won, the happier you got." Angelus watched Buffy fall behind a building and heard the dragon shriek out. "Angel, you fool." Angelus picked up Willow's body and began to walk to the end of the roof.
"Not so fast, mate," called the cockney accent. "I knew I smelled a spot of blood up here. Illyria's down there handling herself and everything just fine, thought I'd pop up here for a look."
"Spike," Angelus growled.
"Oh, come off it. I'm not happy to see you either," Spike said. "It's been a while since we last met, but you should know, I'm a champion…so that's one more reason to stop you. We already know the rest."
"You're forgetting something, old friend," Angelus remarked.
"What's that?"
"You've got a meeting with destiny…'champion'," Angelus said as he walked towards him.
Spike began to stride towards Angel, his knuckles white with strain. "I got your destiny –" but he stopped short and doubled over. Angelus smiled and patted the vampire's shoulder as he passed him. The veins on Spike's face bulged and he flopped backwards onto his back, his arms forced open as light poured out of his body. A beat split his chest and he felt the stagnant blood in his veins force forward. He gasped for breath.
"You won't be hurting anyone anytime soon, 'mate'," mocked Angelus. He walked to the edge of the roof and grinned at Spike before stepping off into the streets.
Spike convulsed on the cement rooftop, feeling his senses ebb from superhuman to par. He could hear nothing, then became perfectly aware of the entire battlefield at once. His senses extended beyond that and he became aware of the earth's rotation, then lost his vision entirely. His sight returned with fewer colors and he was aware of the taste of blood on his lips.
He felt weak and could feel all of the sour blood in his stomach. He turned over and retched out a fountain of crimson. He continued to vomit blood, smelling the battlefield, then just blood, then the entire universe. Spike's eyes rolled in the back of his head and he screamed out kneeling at his full height, occasionally spraying blood out of his clenched teeth.
He fell to the ground weakly and felt his senses die away one by one until he lost consciousness.