Author's note: In Angel terms, this would fit somewhere between "Double or Nothing" and "The Price."
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns all except this specific storyline.
X X X X X
Angel and Cordelia killed the second demon almost as Warren commanded the attack, then each got to work on another one.
Xander and Giles went to work double-teaming the nearest vampire, while Gunn attacked the pair of Burchells' demons.
They all stood well out of the way of the Groosalugg, who was, clichéd as it sounds, a living representation of the poetry of violence. He beheaded one of the remaining vampires and kicked one of the demons in the same smooth motion.
The demons and vampires, despite being stupid, quickly realized who the two most dangerous combatants were; four went after the Groosalugg and another three came after Angel.
The Groosalugg grinned. Now this -- this was living! He swung his axe and caught the nearest demon in the chest, then jammed the handle into the vampire sneaking up behind him.
Angel threw one of the demons into a nearby ambulance and staked his vampiric opponent. He was ready to do anything it took to protect the people inside the hospital.
Burchells' didn't have any special abilities apart from an ability to run quickly, but that didn't make them lightweights in a fight. Gunn had just cracked the rebar over the skull of one of his opponents when he felt -- briefly -- a similar blow at the base of his
Xander ducked a roundhouse punch from the vampire he and Giles were fighting, and was ready to stake it with the broken mop handle when he was tackled by a large yellow demon of some sort.
He beat on its head with the mop handle, but that only seemed to piss the creature off. It grabbed him by the neck and started squeezing.
Realizing he wouldn't be able to breathe much longer, Xander took the handle and jammed the sharp end into the demon's eye. The demon yowled and let him go for a second, long enough for Xander to begin to roll clear.
He felt a hand on his leg but, as he kicked behind him with his free leg, the hand grew limp. He rolled over and saw Cordy standing there, pulling her sword out of the demon's throat. She reached down and yanked Xander to his feet.
"Told you I could use this thing," she said.
Xander said, "I believed you the first time. But thanks."
She grinned. "No problem, Zeppoboy." Then she went over to fight one of the demons assaulting Angel.
The Groosalugg was fighting two vampires without his axe, with was buried in the skull of a dead demon; another was lying on the ground screaming. The warrior seemed to be having the time of his life.
Giles was wrestling with his vampire; Xander went over and staked it from behind with the mop handle. As the Watcher got to his feet, they stood and surveyed the battle.
They were now battling eight opponents, but were one down; noticing Gunn's condition, Xander and Giles charged the Burchells' standing over him. The demon seemed angry that Gunn had killed her mate.
This earned her no sympathy from the humans, of course, who immediately started pounding her as hard as they could.
Cordelia was wielding her sword well; she beheaded one of the two remaining vampires and moved over to look for a way to help Angel without taking the chance of stabbing him as well.
Anya had crept around the outskirts of the fight, looking for Warren. When she saw that the man named Gunn was injured, though, she went over, picked him up, and put him on the grass near the hospital entrance, away from the battle.
When she looked up for Warren again, he was gone. No; there he was entering the hospital.
She followed him.
X X X X X
Warren looked around at the fight. "No, no," he said to himself. This was not going according to plan.
The demons were losing the battle. He didn't know where the Conan wannabe with the axe that looked like it could cut battleships in two had come from, or the bald black guy, but they were turning the tide against his little army. The only thing keeping the mêlée going was that the bartender seemed to have stuck him with the stupidest demons and vampires on the planet. Smarter demons would have been running a long time ago.
Still, how the hell could he have known that damn vampire and the babe were on the side of the good guys? Whoever heard of a good vampire? Even Spike helped the good guys only because he was hot for the Slayer.
But Anya – oh, Anya he should have figured out. He'd known she was a vengeance demon again, and how she looked and acted, and how vengeance demons could teleport but not take anyone or anything with them but the clothes they were wearing; why hadn't he put two and two together?
He couldn't even use the gun – too much of a chance of hitting the demons, who were right now the only thing stopping him from getting killed.
And while the bald black guy was down for the count and Xander and that Giles character were having trouble together with one of the zebra demons, Conan and that turncoat vampire were another story entirely – and even the babe with the sword wasn't half-bad. Under other circumstances, he would have been really turned on.
But these weren't other circumstances. Warren called the robot over to him and they quickly changed clothes behind the hospital sign, out of view of the combatants. A paramedic wandering by the battle scene came over to see what was going on, but a quick wave of the gun sent him on his way.
Of course, the cops hadn't shown up yet. This was Sunnydale.
Then he sent his robot duplicate into the building and told it to move around randomly – like it was sneaking around and trying not to be seen.
It went over and did as he'd commanded. As he'd suspected, Anya followed it inside the building. He considered moving in behind her and trying to shoot her, but he had no idea if bullets would kill a vengeance demon and no desire to find out the hard way that they didn't.
Instead, Warren waited thirty seconds – the combat was still in full swing, although there were now more defenders than attackers – and he went inside himself. To his relief, Anya and his double were nowhere in sight, and the other fighters were still concentrating on the battle.
He went through the halls to the ER, then, when no one was looking, crept through the doors leading to the recovery area.
No one noticed. No one noticed anything in Sunnydale unless it was happening to them.
Except for the damn Slayer and her friends.
Well, that ended now.
He saw the Slayer's sister looking into a room. He crept up behind her and hit her in the head with the barrel of the gun. Warren had no particularly gripe with her.
Sure enough, it was the Slayer's room. Buffy Summers was lying there, unconscious, with tubes sticking out of both arms. He went over and leaned over the bed.
"Just you and me now, baby," he said, cradling the pistol. "And there's no one who can stop me now."
A blast of wind hit him from behind and knocked him into the wall. He shook his head and looked up.
Tara said, "Wrong."