Willow's hands began to tremble. To her watchers, she was doing nothing but sitting as far away from the alien as possible, taking deep, regular breaths. But within her, mystical energy was being channelled through her body to her fingertips, where it would be released like a magical firecracker against whatever was unfortunate enough to be near her hands, like, say, the barrier of the cell. This was the Hammer of Nish'ta in a nutshell, if you chose to overlook the fact that an improperly prepared and completely unequipped attempt like this one would almost definitely cause an equally destructive backlash against the caster.
Another deep breath. Willow kept her eyes open and moving, being careful not to look trance-y. The air around the tips of her fingers began to shimmer and waver, ever so slightly. Willow could feel herself almost at that spot where power and control were balanced enough to-
The door swung open and Traeten walked in, striding up to her cell. Her concentration suddenly broken, Willow felt the energy recede back into her.
"Hello again, Willow." He was smiling again. "Sorry to have kept you waiting, I hope you've been comfortable." Willow heard a faint zap outside, but no one else seemed to notice. "Have you decided whether to cooperate? I'm afraid that you no longer have any time to consider." He motioned at the alien, which was beginning to stir. Willow was thinking of a response, something wittily defiant would have been nice, but before she could speak everything went completely to hell.
A round object smashed through the window, ricocheted off the ceiling, and glanced off Traeten's head, toppling him to the floor. Before he even hit the ground, the smoke grenade exploded with a whump, filling the room with dense black smoke and clouding Willow's view of what was going on. The Ravnon guards scrambled in all directions as the doctors took cover behind their chairs. Willow heard glass shatter, a loud bang, and thought she saw a flash of yellow hair in the chaos.
Buffy?
A deep, throaty snarl came from beside her, and Willow's head whipped around to see that the DemAlien had been awakened by the attack. Limbs twitching, head swivelling, drool spilling from its double jaws, it took in its surroundings, then rolled heavily onto all fours. Its eyeless skull focused on her, and it snarled again.
The grenade had destroyed most of the window, and Buffy shattered the rest with a single kick, then leaped through into the swirling smoke. She landed next to a gun rack, a man in front of her in the process of grabbing a rifle from it. Buffy thought this was a bit redundant, considering the submachine gun already slung around his shoulders and the pistol at his side, but wasn't going to complain about the free hit. Before the man could turn she lunged forward, seized his head from behind, and slammed it into the unforgiving steel rack. He dropped to the ground, unconscious. The gun rack promptly added injury to injury, overbalancing and falling heavily on top of him, weapons clattering onto the floor.
After a hasty rendezvous with Riley and the other two Initiative guys, they'd compared notes and had been surprised at how liberally Traeten had been spreading the screwage around: the Scoobies hadn't expected him to have the guts to double-cross his own customers, while the Initiative hadn't expected kidnapping on top of sabotage. Working quickly, they'd put together a plan to attack the compound, and then the Humvee had led the way there, crunching Traeten's car when it had parked.
Behind her, she heard screams, gunfire, sounds of battle. An acrid smell was in the air, courtesy of the smoke grenade. She knew that Riley, Forrest and Xander were rushing the door while Graham handled the grenade launcher and Giles manned the radio in case of trouble, and spared a thought for how they were faring before she whirled around, ready for the next threat. The entire process, from entry to reminiscence to knockout, had taken less than ten seconds, and the element of surprise seemed to still be with them.
A man stepped over Traeten's sprawled, unmoving body, wielding a large, nasty-looking serrated knife. As he cautiously advanced, Buffy realized that the screams sounded an awful lot like Willow...
Xander gripped the tiny telescoping baton tightly as he, Riley and Forrest moved in on the compound. He would have preferred a more potent weapon- heck, any other weapon- but Forrest had not liked the idea of a civilian having any sort of military equipment at all, proclaiming that "Getting eaten by a demon, I'm fine with that. Part of the job I signed up to do. But I am not going out by accidentally getting shot in the back by a dumb civilian. I have standards." Which had prompted Xander to point out that it had been the Initiative's idea to let the sleazy corporate guy set up his own base in Sunnydale and hand him a killer alien while they were at it, so who were really the dumb people here? This had made it necessary for Riley to point out that there was still a person in there who needed rescuing, so could Xander please just take a baton?
It was beginning to look like he might as well have come unarmed; the Initiative guys might not be very polite, but their game was tight tonight. The sentry outside the building hadn't seen a thing before Riley had zapped him into unconsciousness, and now the three of them were almost to the door. Judging by the panicked yells coming from within the smoke-shrouded facility, the Ravnon guys were still figuring out what was going on. Out of the corner of his eye Xander saw Buffy charging the window.
"Go, go, go!" Riley yelled as he ran, Xander right behind him. Forrest, who was wielding a rifle and explosives, dashed forward and slapped a plastic charge onto the lock of the door, then leaped back and pushed the detonator. The lock vanished in a cloud of sparks and more smoke, and the door swung open. Riley fired his blaster inside, and the man unfortunate enough to have been standing within the doorway fell to the ground, writhing as electricity poured through him.
Forrest moved in on the building, Riley covering him, while Xander hung back, unsure where he fit into this SWAT stuff. On his right Graham was moving up to join the fray. Forrest entered the doorway, swept his rifle to the left-
And dropped to the ground as a pistol butt crashed into his skull with merciless force from the right. As the unconscious commando hit the ground the attacker, a hulking black man dressed the same way as the rest of the Ravnon guards, stepped into the doorway, raised the pistol, and shot Riley in the chest.
Willow screamed. The alien towered over her, splashing drool on her face. It's tail was wrapped like an iron band around her legs, and she could feel the cold, poisonous tip moving up the leg of her pants, pressed against her flesh, searching for a soft spot to sting...
Terrified, desperate, she put her hands out and thought go away! with all the intensity her soul could muster. It wasn't a spell, just a sheer, emotion-driven outpouring of desperate magical energy, and it knocked the creature back. Stumbling, its tail lashed out and struck the glass behind it, triggering a powerful shock which sent it down on all fours. It whirled around, snarling, to meet this new attack. As it butted its head into the glass, receiving another shock for its troubles, Willow caught her breath.
Taking advantage of the respite, she looked past the alien's bulk as it continued to puzzle over the shield. The smoke had cleared to a fine haze, allowing her to see the battle clearly. Except for Colt and Toni, all the Ravnon employees were down, or in the case of the doctors, cowering. Toni was grappling with Buffy, who was twisting his knife arm behind his back painfully in an attempt to make him drop his prized weapon. But Colt had been waiting by the doorway when the commandoes had come through, and it looked like he'd knocked one of them out, and he'd just shot-
But then there was no more time for looking, as the DemAlien remembered her and turned around, baring its teeth.
Giles watched in horror as Riley fell to the ground. Please let him be all right, he thought, Buffy's suffered enough heartache, and I like the lad, please let him be all right. Xander threw himself on top of Riley, both to protect the soldier and himself, but it was a useless gesture. He and Riley were on the ground, completely exposed, less than twenty feet away, and Giles' stomach twisted in on itself, expecting the two to die right then and there.
But the guard hadn't spotted Graham, who had slung the grenade launcher over his shoulder and now aimed his blaster at the attacker's head. The movement caught the goon's eye at the last second and he ducked, the blast of electricity arcing over him and travelling into the building. Something in the facility blew, and the lights went out, plunging the brawl within into darkness. The big guard shot back at Graham and Giles saw sparks fly as the bullet struck the grenade launcher, and then Graham screamed as his weapon exploded spectacularly.
A dark cloud of smoke enveloped the building. Giles couldn't see what was happening, but he could hear that the gunman was still firing. He briefly considered the radio beside him, then dismissed it. Calling that Walsh woman wouldn't bring any meaningful help aside from a cutting remark. Leaving the radio behind, staying low, Giles headed into the cloud.
The huge cloud of smoke washed over Xander like a tidal wave as he rolled off of Riley. Bullets whined over his head as the guard kept firing at Graham, which gave Xander hope that he might still be alive. Upside of fighting vampires and demons, he told himself. They may try to sacrifice, eat, or seduce you, but they usually don't have guns. He didn't think Riley was badly hurt, he hadn't screamed or anything, but that was going to change for all of them fast if that guy kept shooting. Forcing himself to his feet, he saw that the guard was still facing in Graham's direction, slamming a new clip into his pistol.
Xander knew it was the only chance he was going to get. He lowered his head and charged, covering the distance between himself and the goon as fast as his legs could carry him, knowing that if the guy turned his head he'd be dead in a second. Only a little further… The guard spotted him and began to turn, but there were only a few feet left now…
Contact.
It was easier this time, even though she was now doing it in the dark. As the alien reared up on its hind legs and started towards her, Willow visualized it flying backwards and pushed mentally. The creature screeched as an invisible force sent it staggering back into the shield, blasting it with electricity yet again. But this time, when it went down it stayed on all fours and began crawling towards Willow again. A low, piercing hiss came from its mouths and its muscles were taut with fury. She shoved again, only to cry out as a stab of pain shot through her overtaxed mind. The push was weaker, and the alien was more stable on all fours. It rocked back a couple of inches, then kept coming. Its second mouth shot out at her throat, missed, caught her shirt instead, and pulled her in...
Riley grabbed at his body armour, trying to see where he'd been hit. Despite the pain in his upper right chest, which felt like someone had used it for shotputting practice, an odd sense of calm washed over him as he methodically searched his body for blood. He'd always had a strange willingness to accept physical injury without fear or complaint.
There was no wound, though he'd likely have a nasty bruise. Whatever kind of pistol Ravnon was using, it didn't have a lot of penetrating power, and hadn't been able to defeat the Initiative's protective gear. With the threat gone, Riley cleared his mind, got back into combat mode and took stock of the situation. It had been about ten seconds since he'd been hit, but everything had changed. He couldn't see more than two feet in front of him because of the thick cloud of smoke in the air, and the gunfire had stopped. Forrest lay stunned at the threshold of the facility, moving weakly, but there was no sign of Xander, Mr. Giles or Graham.
A gust of wind suddenly cleared the smoke in front of him as he regained his feet, and Riley saw where Xander was. He was inside the darkened building, pinned to a counter by the gunman, who was about to blow his brains out.
It was like running into a brick wall. A brick wall with a gun and an attitude. But Xander's body check did make the guy stop shooting, knocking him slightly off balance. Before he could follow up, the Ravnon guard seized Xander by the front of his shirt with one hand and shoved him to one side. He fell onto his side, skidding slightly, amazed at how strong the guy was. As he scrambled to his feet, there was a soft click as the facility's soft red emergency lighting turned on, bathing the embattled compound in bloody hues.
The gunman grabbed him again, this time around the neck. Struggling futilely, Xander was driven backwards into a counter. Chemistry equipment toppled off and shattered as he was bent backwards over it, but he didn't notice. All his attention was focused on the cold metal of the pistol being pressed into his forehead.
"You've got to be the dumbest guy I've ever killed," rumbled the man above him, smirking.
"You've got to be the ugliest guy who's ever tried!" he shot back. The goon's eyes narrowed, and then Xander felt pain he'd never imagined before.
This guy really liked his knife. Buffy twisted his wrist again, and again he somehow managed to hold on, this time swinging his free hand towards her kidney. She caught the punch easily, let him go, and then clocked him with a left to the jaw. He fell down, started to get back up, and went down for good as Buffy's heel connected with his forehead.
Buffy turned to the other side of the facility, where the commandoes were supposed to be in and in control by now. Instead, there was just Xander, about to be shot point-blank in the head. And in the cell at the back of the room she saw Willow, in the grip of the creature she'd fought in the park.
Suddenly, a blast of electricity arced across the room and sent both Xander and his attacker falling to the ground. Freed from her dilemma, Buffy streaked towards the cell holding Willow and the alien. But even as she drew closer, its hand drew back for a killing swipe and Willow screamed...
Riley let out his breath. It had been a big risk, taser-blasting the guard while his finger was on the trigger. The electric surge might have triggered a muscle spasm which would have ended Xander's life. As it was, the blast traveled through both men, splitting its force between them and stunning them both temporarily. Xander rolled off the counter onto the floor while the Ravnon guard fell to his knees, dropping the pistol, but immediately started to rise.
Riley sighted on his chest and fired again, but nothing except a fizzling noise came from the weapon. "Damn!" he said as the huge man reached for the pistol. Maggie had promised to fix that thing after the incident with the Gentlemen, but the experimental gun was as temperamental as ever.
Before the guard could retrieve his weapon, Riley hurled himself at him. The two crashed to the floor, gun spinning away from them. With a grunt, the heavier man flipped himself on top of Riley, pinning him. Riley pulled out his hand taser, but before he could strike stars exploded before the commando's eyes as a fist slammed into his face, and the taser fell to the floor.
Beside them, Xander's muscles were stiff and painful. He seemed to be alive, and had no idea what had happened. He felt like that time in fourth grade he'd tried to show Willow how to repair a battery, only a couple dozen times worse.
A cry of pain brought him back to the battle. Raising himself up on one arm, he saw the ugly guy, minus gun, pounding Riley, who didn't seem to be shot at all. Xander put aside his confusion and struggled to his feet. He stumbled around the counter, gaining momentum as his muscles recovered from the shock. He lunged forward and slammed into the black-clad guard, toppling him off Riley. The three fell to the floor in a yelling, punching heap.
"Hey!" yelled Buffy as she sprinted forward. It was a trick so old that there may have been cave paintings dedicated to it, but the DemAlien hadn't been around for long. Its claws paused inches away from Willow's throat as its head swivelled to identify the source of the noise.
Not breaking stride, Buffy leapt into the plexiglass shield of the cell feetfirst. The barrier had been built to withstand attacks from the inside, not the outside, and a circular series of cracks spread across the shield. The alien hissed as it realized it was under attack, then hurled Willow back against the cell wall. She struck it with a thunk and dropped like a sack of potatoes.
With a sudden, powerful movement the DemAlien slammed into the already weakened shield. No electricity touched its body now, and the plexiglass shattered into dozens of razor shards. An especially large piece hurtled towards the Slayer's face, and she snapped her head to the side, feeling the air from its passage brush her skin. It was all the distraction the creature needed; hurling itself forward it tackled Buffy and bore her to the ground with its superior weight. Falling on her back, she brought her legs up and heaved the alien off of her. The scientists screamed in horror at the sight of the beast free of its cell. Screaming "It's loose! It's loose!" they ducked further under the lab counter.
As she scrambled to her feet, she spared a moment to look past the alien at Willow, who was beginning to stir in the cell. The alien hissed, hesitated. Maybe it remembered what had happened the last time it had fought this small, yellow-furred prey. She hoped it did, and that it wasn't smart enough to tell the difference between 'Buffy with an arsenal of weapons and a squad of commandoes' and 'Buffy alone and unarmed'.
The creature lunged at her, snarling. It was smart enough, or it just didn't care. Buffy bent over, grabbed its reaching arm, and flipped it over her back. Its momentum flung it headfirst into the floor, and it scrambled up. The Slayer looked around for something, anything she could use. Against an armoured creature like this, she couldn't punch with full force without needing finger casts and a serious manicure. And she didn't see kicks alone bringing this thing down. She wished she'd brought at least a stake along, even though she'd expected this outing to be one of the rescue-Willow-and-beat-the-weasel-for-information variety, not a crash course in small-scale warfare.
The DemAlien's hands lashed out and seized her shoulders, tried to pull her to its jaws. She twisted away from the hands while kicking upwards with her right foot, smashing her heel right into the thing's teeth. It took a step back, but was otherwise unfazed.
Yep, kicks were definitely not going to do the trick here.
Xander rolled onto his knees. The big man's face was right in front of him, eerily lit by the emergency lighting. Xander let his instincts take over, lashing out with a left jab that knocked the mercenary's head back. He responded with a fierce backhand with his clenched fist that struck Xander's face and sent him to the floor. He quickly got to his feet, but the goon moved first; seizing him with one hand and drawing the other back for a bone-crushing punch heading for Xander's nose. But before it connected Riley swept the arm aside, and followed up with a right to the chin. The guard toppled backwards, but he snatched at Riley's shoulder, dragging the soldier down with him.
"Xander!" It was Giles at the doorway, looking somewhat the worse for wear.
"Giles!"
They saw Buffy fighting the creature. Its tail shot up between its legs, towards the Slayer's stomach, and she dodged away. Behind them, Willow was stumbling to her feet. Riley seemed to be getting the gunman under control, in the repeated-punches-to-the-face sense.
"Help Buffy," said Giles as he headed for Willow. Xander nodded and grabbed the guard's pistol, then reconsidered and went for the rifle that Forrest had been carrying. He had a feeling he'd need the firepower.
As Xander armed himself, the alien's revolting second mouth shot out again, and Buffy ducked under it, spun, and slammed the heel of her hand into the beast's chin, with almost no effect besides making her hand hurt. It was a stalemate. Its demon heritage made the DemAlien stronger and tougher, but it didn't have the vicious speed Hostile 100 had displayed during the fight in Buffy's house. But while so far she'd stayed ahead of its attacks, she had no way of really hurting the thing.
"Buffy, Willow, get down!" She turned, saw Xander lifting a gun to his shoulder and dove out of the way.
Meanwhile, Riley grabbed the hand tazer from the ground, pressed it against Colt's chest, and sighed with relief as the volts ripping through the man's bulky body sent him into twitching unconsciousness. He hadn't had this bad a fight against a human since boot camp. He looked up and saw Xander about to fire on the alien.
"Xander, stop!" He said, scrambling to his feet. "Walsh wants it-"
The rifle Forrest had brought on the attack had been chosen specifically to deal with the possibility of the alien escaping. A CAR-15 rifle, it was the 5.56-mm 'green tip' armour-piercing cartridge. This bullet is designed to puncture metal with ease, and while it is unlikely that its makers ever gave thought to its effect on alien exoskeletons, they probably would have been pleased with its performance when Xander pulled the trigger.
The first burst fired was slightly off-centre. Of the three bullets, only one found its mark, tearing into the Xenomorph's right shoulder, spraying acid all over the floor. Fortunately, none of the areas which began to smoke and liquefy from contact with the otherworldly blood were near where Buffy was regrouping towards Riley and Xander, or near the cell where Giles was helping Willow away from the combat.
The DemAlien's arm hung limp and useless at its side, muscles destroyed and nerves severed by the wound. However, one of the green-tip's drawbacks is its lack of stopping power compared to larger, conventional bullets, a drawback the alien's extreme durability didn't exactly help. Enraged, the creature turned and started to advance on Xander, who sighted on its head and fired again and again...
Once again, the effects of Ethan Rayne's mischief served Xander well, as his pseudo-military experience guided his shots with lethal precision. The bullets slammed into the front of the DemAlien's smooth head, blasting blood, bone, and what might have been the alien equivalent of brains out the back of the DemAlien's skull. It stopped in mid-stride as the contents of its demolished head sizzled on the ground around it. Then, slowly, it wobbled, teetered, and collapsed on the ground like the corpse it was.
There was a moment of silence, as they stared at the slain creature and Xander lowered the rifle. Then Riley remembered his sentence. "... alive," he finished.
"Riley, if I hadn't listened when you'd said that in the basement, this would have ended long ago." Buffy pointed out gently. Without waiting for an answer from her boyfriend, she went to Willow. Riley opened his mouth, then closed it in a grim line, and went to check on his men.
Xander was with Willow too, who seemed to recovered from her impact with the wall and was smiling at her friends.
"Is everyone all right?" asked Buffy. "Aside from the goons, crooks, and aliens, of course."
"My head hurts, but I'll be all right," said Willow.
"Me too. That massive electric shock was actually kind of refreshing," Xander said.
"I'm fine, aside from the smoke I inhaled while checking on Graham," said Giles. "His weapon exploded, and the blast knocked him out, but other than that he's very lucky."
Xander grinned at Willow. "Geez Will, the year's not even half over and this is, what, the third, fourth time you've been in deadly peril?" He remarked. "You keep this up, and you just might top Giles' record."
"Yes, and what a bittersweet moment that promises to be," Giles said wryly.
At the doorway, Riley helped Forrest to his feet. He was looking slightly unsteady, on account of the pistol butt he'd taken on his head, but that didn't stop him from heading over to the two scientists, handcuffs extended. They seemed almost eager to surrender, anything to get away from all this noise and commotion.
There was a groan. Traeten stirred, opened his eyes, raised his head, looked around his ruined facility. He saw his employees unconscious, his equipment smashed. Then he saw the bleeding, ruined body of the alien, and looked like he was going to be sick. A shadow fell over him. It was Riley.
"Jacob Traeten," he said, "You are hereby under arrest for espionage, sabotage, assault, kidnapping, attempted murder, and treason against the government of the United States."
Traten said nothing. For once, he wasn't smiling.
A/N: In Season 4 prior to this story, Willow is attacked by Harmony and is rescued by Oz, attacked by Veruca and rescued by Oz again, is trapped in a burning building and has to be rescued by cave-Buffy, and then the Initiative tries to capture her and Buffy stops them. And now this.