Author's Note - I have to start by apologising for taking such a ridiculously long time to up-date this story. Originally, around the middle of September, I decided to take a month off from writing this fic, because I was a little burned out, and I had become pretty busy. However, when I tried to go back to it again, I found it very difficult to pick up where I left off. This chapter was really hard to write as a result, and I'm still not sure that I'm happy with it, but i decided to press on anyway. So I hope everyone hasn't totally lost interest by now (I wouldn't blame you if you had...)
Secondly, one of the reviews (from Kara - thank you:) ) reminded me that when Angel vamps out in Pylea, he turns into the Angel-beast. Oooops :) All fixed now...
Thirdly, my sincerest thanks to everyone who's followed this story, who've stuck with it and who've reviewed. Your kind words and support mean a lot to me. I hope I haven't let you down. Please do continue to read. We're nearing the home stretch, and I will do my best to update more promptly from now on.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I have nothing but the new shoes I bought for Christmas and I don't think they'd fit you, Mr Whedon, so please don't sue me. I'm writing this for love, not money...
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE CALM BEFORE...
The chamber Giles had entered was dimly lit; a few flickering torches the only source of light. But it was not so dark that he couldn't spot the dark cloaked figure attempting to sneak up on him.
Ducking to one side as his attacker lunged forward; Giles twisted his sword upwards, the clash of steel meeting steel resonating around the room. Shoving him backwards, Giles positioned himself for a more offensive battle strategy. He didn't have time to play around with this guy.
Giles considered the possibility that his opponent might be considered a worthy swordsman in this dimension. But he also knew that his own skills were bloody good. Parrying another attack, Giles swung his leg up and out, kicking the enemy backwards. Without hesitation, he swung his sword around, separating head from shoulders.
Looking rather smug and pleased with himself, Giles turned back towards his quarry, the plinth on which rested the three books. As he moved towards it, he didn't see two more hooded figures creep out of the shadows behind him.
Faith's eyes snapped open. Sitting up quickly, she shook off the dizziness that permeated the edges of her mind. Her slayer instincts took over and she leapt back onto her feet, grabbed her weapon and moved in for the attack once more.
Her peripheral vision took in Cordelia, writhing on the ground a few feet away from the demon she and Angel had been fighting. She also glimpsed a new demon, green and snarling. But no Angel.
Where the hell was he?
She was about to move to the front to help when a strangled yell got her attention.
Reduced to fighting one of the 8-foot demons alone, Connor had held his own, attacking what he worked out were the creature's weak points – its neck and the fleshy area on its side. It was now bleeding profusely and weakened, but its rage more than made up for that. With a shriek of pure fury, it managed to wrap its deadly talons around Connor's neck, lifting him into the air and slowly choking the life out of him.
Changing direction, Faith came at the demon low, plunging her sword into its foot. The demon shrieked again and turned its attention to the slayer, dropping Connor in the process. Gasping for breath, he rolled to one side and then proceeded to look for a weapon. Grasping his fallen axe, he got to his feet and ran at the demon, plunging his axe into its lower stomach at the same time that Faith ran her sword through its neck. One last wail and the demon fell.
As the last remnants of the vision left her, Cordelia fought off the wave of nausea that churned in her stomach. It had been a long time since the visions had such a horrific effect on her. The headaches were a thing of the past, but the feelings, the smells, the sheer horror contained within the visions she now got were worse than ever. And what made them all the more distressing for her were that they no longer seemed to have structure or meaning. They simply presented the carnage that awaited them, but gave her no clue to how she could prevent the events or resolve them.
As her mind beginning to clear, she suddenly remembered the battle she had been in the middle of. Opening her eyes, she saw that Angel was still fighting off the 8 foot demon.
But it wasn't Angel. Her insides turned cold as she realized what had happened. He'd vamped out and become the thing he dreaded – the beast within.
The Angel-beast leapt over her his foe, snarling and snapping like a wild thing. The demon lashed out again with its claws, shredding the coat Angel had been wearing, but missing his flesh. In reply, the Beast grabbed the demon's wrist, snapping it upwards. While the creature still wailed, the Beast leapt again, grabbing the demon's head and twisting hard. With a loud snap, the creature's neck broke and it fell unmoving to the ground.
Panting with exertion but still snarling, the Angel-beast then turned its attention towards Cordy.
Willow gagged as the smell of her own vomit filled her nostrils. Rolling away from the mess, she groaned as the sudden movement caused the throbbing in her head to intensify. Now she knew what Cordelia had gone through for years and she didn't envy her one bit.
Altered by her earlier yells, Buffy and Spike ran into the lobby at the same time as Xander and Dawn entered from the basement.
"Willow!" Buffy
"God, Will, are you okay?" Xander exclaimed, rushing to her side and pulling her into a sitting position.
Another wave of nausea hit her and her head throbbed again. "Ow! Ow! Okay, not like this vision thing. Now I know how Cordy used to feel."
"You had a vision?" Buffy asked, utterly confused.
Her sister felt the same way. "How? Of what? When did you start having visions? How?"
That did nothing to help ease her aching head. "Less of the 20 questions, Dawnie. Woman with a splitting headache here."
Spike was the only one of the group who didn't look totally lost. "Was it from the Powers, Red?"
She started to nod, and then thought better of moving her head in any way. "I think so. It felt like I was… sharing Cordy's vision, if that makes any sense."
It was only then that Xander and Dawn noticed the new addition to their numbers. Dawn let out an unearthly shriek that made Willow clutch at her head again, and ran to hug him. Xander simply narrowed his remaining eye at the new arrival.
"Doesn't anyone stay dead anymore?"
Buffy arched an eyebrow, urging her over-protective friend to behave. "Look at who he's asking," she chuckled. Turning serious, she turned to the blonde vampire at her side. "You don't sound surprised that Willow had a vision, Spike. What do you know?"
He shrugged. "Red used her own blood to bring Cordelia back from the dead. That formed some kind of cosmic connection between the two of them. In theory, they should share some of the same abilities now, if they can learn to master them in time."
Xander frowned. "How did the dumb-ass end up with all the answers?"
Another shrug. "You'd be amazed what you pick up sitting around on a ruddy cloud all day watching the coming and goings down here." He looked down at Willow, who was still getting her breath back. "You'd better take a couple of painkillers and gather your thoughts. Trouble's on its way," he told her ominously.
"Angel," her voice pleaded as the green, scaly demon came closer, fangs bared, snarling. "Angel, it's me. Cordelia."
No response. Snapping, he came closer still, backing her and the others into a corner. She sensed Faith and Connor arm themselves with stakes, preparing to move in front of her and fight. She couldn't let that happen.
"No!" she said, taking a step forward to ensure they were still behind her. "Stay back. It's Angel."
Faith's voice was worried. "Cordy…"
"No. Don't attack him," the Seer insisted. Refocusing her attention on Angel, she took a slow, tentative step towards him. "Angel." She kept her voice low. Soothing. "Angel, you don't want to attack us. This isn't you. You know it isn't."
The Angel-beast snarled again, swiping a claw at her but not connecting. Instinctively, Cordy jumped back, and took a moment to calm down before trying again.
"It's okay. It's okay. You don't want to stay like this. Come back to me, Angel." She took another step forward, slowly reaching her hand towards him, which prompted both Faith and Connor to hiss her name in warning.
"Angel. This isn't you. Come back to me." He snarled again in response, but less fiercely than before. "Come back to me Angel." Gently, she touched his face. "I love you."
The beast's eyes connected with hers. And as she looked into them, she saw them become softer. More human. And he stopped growling.
"Angel," she said softly again.
The green and scales disappeared and before her stood the man she loved.
"Cordy," he whispered, hanging his head in shame. "I'm sorry."
Without saying a word, she took another step forward and slid her arms around him, holding him tight.
Just then, the door next to them burst open and a slightly worse-for-wear Giles limped out.
"You okay, G?" Faith asked the Watcher, who was bleeding slightly from a wound on his shoulder and from the looks of things, was fairly battered and bruised.
Giles nodded triumphantly, grinning at the three leather-bound volumes in his arms. "I'm more that a match for three bloody monks," he said proudly. "I've got the…"
Before he could say anything else, he was propelled forward as one of his earlier opponents launched himself at the Englishman. Knocked off his balance and unable to stop himself due to the books in his arms, he fell sprawling to the ground.
As the monk raised his sword above his head to attack again, he was stopped short with startled and painful expression on his face. Looking down, he saw a dagger sticking out of his chest, which Connor had thrown. His last breath huffed out like a sigh of disappointment as he crumpled to the ground, dead.
Faith was just helping Giles back onto his feet when behind them, a groan announced that Lorne was coming around from his unconscious state.
Sitting up and rubbing the back of his head he wondered, "What did I miss?"
Three aspirins in her system and nursing a cup of chamomile tea, Willow was feeling much better than she had been a short time earlier. The sun had now set, and all around her she watched as slayers, demons and street-fighters gathered their weapons together and prepared for battle.
On the outside, she presented a calm exterior, but inside she was in turmoil.
Her first worry was that her earlier vision had weakened her so close to the impending battle. But her deeper worry was fed from Spike's words. It was possible, due to the spell she had cast a few days previous, that she now shared some of Cordelia's powers. Undoubtedly, those powers would come in very handy when fighting this war. She had watched Cordy decimate large numbers of opponents in a matter of seconds, simply by emitting a beam of light. But she had also watched the same woman crumple and go into some kind of mystical coma, simply because she had not mastered her new and ever growing powers.
What if the same thing happened to Willow, right in the middle of the battle? What use would she be to Buffy and the others if she was unconscious? It didn't bear thinking about, but Willow couldn't help but dwell on it - her worry compounded by the fact that time had pretty much ran out, and she no longer had the luxury of learning to control her new power boost.
On the other side of the lobby, Buffy was having a similar crisis.
"I can't."
"I hate to break it to you, love, but you have to."
Nervously, she shook her head.
"I seem to remember you giving more than your fair share of pep talks and speechifying two years ago pet."
She chewed on her lower lip and that was the final straw for Spike. It was time for tough love.
"You used to be a bloody cheerleader, Slayer," he told her. "And if ever there was a time for cheerleading, it's bloody well now. So stop bloody standing there, biting on your delightfully pouty lower lip and just bloody well go talk to your troops!"
Stunned, she looked at him, not sure whether to laugh, cry or punch his lights out. She compromised by raising an eyebrow at him.
He sighed, misunderstanding her expression. "Please."
That did it. Unable to contain herself anymore, she started to laugh. Which just pissed him off even more.
"I don't see what's so bloody funny!" he pouted.
Still smirking, she pecked him on the lips. "Thank you," she told him sincerely. "I think I needed that."
Looking towards her assembled army, she took a deep breath and settled her resolve. And oddly, she felt better. She felt like she could do this. More importantly, she felt like she was worthy of doing this, which had been a feeling she'd been missing for a long time.
Taking Spike's hand and squeezing it, she turned to face the troops. "It's Showtime."
"Everyone!" she said loudly. Those closest fell silent and the silence spread through the room until everyone had their attention focused on the tiny blonde woman who held so much power within her small frame.
"For some of you this will be your first battle. And I'm not going to lie to you – for some of you, this will be your last. I'm not going to pretend this will be easy, because it won't be. We're going to face hell itself tonight. And it's going to do everything in its power to crush us like bugs. And we are not going to let them.
"Last time I stood in this position, I was speaking to a group of potential Slayers – some of them are standing in front of me now. And I told them that they were there because they were chosen. But I don't believe that anymore. We're not here because we were chosen. We're here because we made a choice. A choice not to let evil win. A choice to fight the darkness no matter what the personal cost. A choice to do what's right. Everyone in this room has made that choice. That commitment. And that is why we're going to win."
Silence reverberated around the room, as everyone assembled absorbed her words. And for a moment, Buffy reveled in perfect stillness, sensing a calm settle over them.
That calm was broken as the front door swung open as Vi and Rona stumbled in.
"They're coming!"
The van bumped over the rocky terrain as they raced against the daylight which was fast disappearing over the horizon.
The violent movement of the vehicle did nothing to aid Giles' concentration. The three volumes he was attempting to translate were sizable, a problem that was compounded by the fact that they were written in Trionic, which meant that he had to keep switching between the books on a regular basis.
The initial third of the books seemed to be taken up with mythology and creation stories which Giles doubted would be useful on this occasion, however interesting they might appear. The next section of the books dealt with the coming of the Pylean 'messiah', which Cordelia had already explained (with great relish) was about her. Moving towards the final sections of the books, he found passages that seemed much more relevant to their current situation.
"Hmm," he muttered to himself as he read.
"Hmm?" Cordelia leaned over his shoulder to look. "Have you found something?"
The Watcher didn't say anything at first, but simply re-read the passage he had just covered, to ensure he had translated correctly. "Perhaps," he finally replied without looking up. "This section deals with a "Triumvirate of Power, which holds sway over the fate of the worlds. It speaks of a chamber and three separate choices which will either save or destroy all the dimensions."
"Sounds cheery," Connor wryly remarked. "Anything else?"
"And on the fateful day, they will come and face fear itself," Giles read, pausing briefly to switch books again. "It's all very vague – references to 'essence', the heart, the soul and "that which was not meant to be". And then there are a series of letters – consonants, similar to those which brought us to Pylea…"
"Let me see," Cordy said, reaching across to take the book from Giles. As soon as her fingertips made contact with the ancient paper, the vision assaulted her. This time it held no violence, no fear. An 'infomercial from the PTB' she thought to herself as it ended.
Taking his eyes off the dirt path before him as he drove, Angel looked back to check that she was okay. "Cordy?"
"The three of us have to get inside the fortress and say the incantation," she replied. "It will take us to the Senior Partners."
The ground shook before them. The Slayers and their allies had moved quickly, each into the positions which had already been assigned to them. Now they stood, clutching their weapons, eyes fixed upon the horizon.
They could hear them coming. Even from several blocks away, still out of their line of vision, the sheer number of them shook the earth.
Behind the front line, Xander and Dawn stood side by side, a hand-held rocket launcher balanced on his shoulder, a rocket, ready for re-loading, in her arms. As he looked down at her, she gave him a nervous smile.
"Flame unit!" he said, his voice raised above the steadily building rumble.
"Ready!"
"Archers!"
"Ready!"
"Once more into the breach," he muttered in a tone that only Dawn could hear.
"That the best you can do?" she smirked.
He winked with his good eye. "Tell you what. When we get through this, I'll brush up on my pop-culture quips, just for you."
Up front, at the head of the column, Buffy and Willow were coping with their nerves in a similar way.
"You ready for this?" the petite blonde asked.
The witch shook her head. "Not even remotely. You?"
"Nope. Figured out Cordelia's 'light-of-doom' trick yet?"
Willow cocked an eyebrow at her best friend. "Do I look like a woman who knows how to decimate an entire army with her internal flashlight?" she asked indignantly.
Up ahead, they heard a roar.
"Well, you might want to figure it out pretty soon, Red," Spike remarked as he arrived at the other side of Buffy. "Because here they come."
To Be Continued...