Welcome to the Hellmouth Ch. 5: Lost
Summary: Members of the Veritas Project investigate weird occurrences in a certain town called Sunnydale, California. Once there they find themselves up against their greatest fears and uncover the ancient legend behind the city of Sunnydale.
Disclaimer: I only own Conlan Halliwell, even if he is based on the Charmed Ones; I still made him, so I own him!
"You just keep pushing me. Well my patience has reached its end." Emicia brought up his hand and powered up a fireball. He threw it at Elisha and everyone batted their breath.
Conlan wasn't fast enough to stop the ball and was helpless to watch it fly towards his girlfriend. Emicia was pleased as he saw it near its target, yet when the flash of light was over, Elisha was still standing.
At the base of her feet however, was …
The group looked in shock seeing Nate was lying on his side in front of Elisha. His face contorted in extreme agony. There was a scorch mark on his chest, which indicated where the fireball had hit him. Elisha and Sarah collapsed onto his body as Elijah stood off to the side.
Before Emicia could let loose another fireball, Conlan grabbed Willow and Tara's hands and he yelled, "By the power of the great falls, wash the evil from these walls!"
A huge wall of water came out of nowhere and crashed into Emicia and washed him out of the shop. They dropped their hands and looked at the family who would now be forever changed.
Conlan looked up and saw Nate's ghost standing next to his body. He looked at his family and then at Conlan who nodded slowly. Conlan walked towards the family and held out his hand towards the spirit when the Angel of Death appeared and said, "Nate Springfield, it is your time to cross over."
"No!" raged Conlan, "he has to explain why he did what he did to his family or they will never find closure."
"All mortals come to closure before the end. In time closure will come to them." the Angel of Death spat back, he then took Nate's hand and disappeared.
"You can't take him!"
"Conlan who are you talking to?" asked Willow walking up next to him.
"The Angel of Death, he came to take Nate's spirit to the afterlife. I tried to stop him, but Death can't be stopped."
"So he really is gone then?" asked Sarah, her face streamed with tears.
"Yes, he really is gone." Conlan replied softly.
"Why? Why did he have to save me?" asked Elisha.
"Elisha he did what anyone would have done. He died to protect the ones he loved. I did that for Dawn when Glory attacked, and then Willow and the others brought be back." Buffy explained.
"Then you can bring him back. Come on, you guys did it once, you can do it again."
"No," began Tara, "first off, when we brought Buffy back, we had the Urn of Osiris which was the means to bring her back. We used the last one, and it was shattered when demons on motorcycles came and interrupted the ritual. Secondly, we tore Buffy out of heaven, and we couldn't do that to another person."
"This is unfair. Can't you guys just write a spell and bring him back. I mean you guys have to be the most powerful witches on the earth."
"No, Witches can't be allowed to alter the fabric of life that way, for selfish reasons. They'd manipulate the world until it came unglued. Things happen and a lot of time we are unhappy with things, but we have to realize that they happen for a reason. Your father died to protect you because you have a destiny that you have to follow through with," Dawn explained, "When I preformed a resurrection spell for my mother, Buffy made me realize that sometimes they come back wrong or they don't come back at all. It isn't worth putting yourself through the pain. I stopped it before we let her into the house. You have to understand that he's gone and there isn't anything we can do about it."
Tara and Willow let out small grins at this because they had the same kind of conversation with Dawn when she wanted to bring her mother back.
"Xander, can you get me eight candles and a box of matches please?" asked Conlan.
"Wait… if you are planning on doing a resurrection spell don't!" ordered Willow.
"It's not a resurrection spell. I am going to summon his spirit so they can get closure."
Xander returned from the back counter with eight candles and matches. Conlan put them in a circle and lighted each one. He then chanted "Here these words. Hear my cry spirit from the other side. Come to me, I summon thee. Cross now the Great Divide."
A bunch of swirling orbs can and formed into Nate. He looked around and then stepped out of the ring and walked over to his family.
"Dad, why did you jump in front of the fireball?" asked Elisha.
"I did it because when you were born and the Watcher's council sent me a letter telling me about your potential status, there was also a prophecy that came with it." began Nate.
"Again with the damn prophecies, God I hate those." spat Buffy.
Nate glared at her, and then continued, "It said, 'the slayer will be challenged by a powerful demon, she will succeed with the help of the witches and the other slayer. Her downfall will occur if someone does not take her place when the demon attempts to kill her.'"
"So you sacrificed yourself for me. So I could complete the prophecy." realized Elisha.
"Yes, if I hadn't then the prophecy would have been fulfilled and no one would be able to take down Emicia. I know you are in a lot of pain right now, but you have to move past it and get on with your life."
"Dad, how can I move on? You were always there for me? Now you aren't. How can I move on? I'll get so lost." questioned Elisha.
"You just have to."
"Dad, this whole thing is unfair. How do we even know this prophecy will come to pass? I mean we just discovered this world a couple of days ago. How can we trust it?" demanded Elijah speaking for the first time since Nate died.
Buffy then stood and stated, "I mean no harm, but all of the prophecies that are made no matter how vague or detailed they are, the prophecies come to pass. I had one that stated I would die at the Master's hands. I did, but Xander brought me back to life with CPR. Think about it Elijah, if it wasn't going to happen, then why would your father die?"
The group stood in silence and then Conlan stated, "Death is not the end of things. It is just the next leg of the journey. When life ends, they are reborn up in the heavens to watch over us."
Nate then nodded; he went back into the candle circle and returned to heaven. Conlan blew out the candles and gave them to Xander. Conlan then walked over to Elisha and pulled her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around him tightly. Sarah walked over to Elijah and pulled him into a hug. The broke apart and looked around.
"What do you think we should do with this body?" asked Sarah.
"Are we really talking about this now? So soon after his death?" asked Elijah.
"If we don't when would we do it? Should we call the police and get them involved?" asked Elisha.
"No, it would be extremely difficult to explain how he passed on, and the police are not extremely pleased with all that goes on around our lives. Willow, do you think we could give him a wiccan sendoff?" asked Buffy.
"We could, I guess. We need to wrap him in white cloth and surround his body on a table with candles at each corner." Willow explained. They preformed the ritual blessing the spirit of Nate Springfield and giving him his rite of passage across the barriers between life and death. The flames leapt onto Nate's wrapped body and burned it away. Soon there was nothing left of Nate on the table.
Elisha looked at the spot where here father had just been. She hit the ground and started weeping. Sarah and Elijah went up to comfort her as the Scoobies and Conlan stood off to the side.
SunnydaleHigh School:
Elisha walked down the hall and was soon joined by Conlan who took her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. Dawn and Elijah soon joined them and they waked off to lunch. They went out to one of the tables outside. They sat down and began eating. When they were done, they started talking about patrol that night, when a blonde haired, blue eyed girl walked up to them. "Hi, I'm Maria, can I sit with you? I'm new."
The group nodded and Maria sat down with them and Elisha introduced everyone, "I'm Elisha, this is my boyfriend Conlan, my brother Elijah, and our friend Dawn." Dawn noticed that Maria was checking out Elijah, so she took his hand in hers and interlocked fingers. When he looked at her, she winked and smiled.
They talked about random topics. Elisha noticed that Conlan had his face scrunched up. She made a mental note to use the big hurt on him if he didn't fess up later.
The bell rang and the group went back to class.
After school, the quartet headed off to the Magic Box. There, they got started on their homework, because Buffy said, 'If you finish your homework before the sun goes down, you can go on patrol.' They also went there to see if they had made any progress on how to stop Emicia, and to train Elisha.
While they were doing homework Elisha looked over at Conlan and asked "Are you alright? I can tell something has been bothering you since lunch."
"Now that you mention it, yes something has been bothering me. After Maria sat down with us, I couldn't read her mind or feel any emotion off of her." explained Conlan.
"And that's bad because…."
"Only people with magical powers and possess a certain spell can block out a telepath's and an empath's power."
Elisha was about to comment when Dawn said, "You have buttface. Maybe we should investigate Maria; I mean what harm could it do?"
"I don't think that'll be necessary. She just walked in." stated Elijah looking at the door as the bell rang.
"What?" came the replies of the others as their heads swiveled to look at the door.
Indeed, Maria had just walked into the store. She saw the group and walked over to them. As she walked over, Conlan reached out to Buffy's mind, "Buffy, are Willow and Tara with you?"
"Yes they are, why?" came the reply.
"Yell for me to come back and help unload boxes. I'll explain more when I get back there."
Buffy appeared in the doorway to the backroom and yelled "Conlan, can you help us out back here?"
Conlan nodded and rose. He walked back to Buffy and they both went back to the training room. "Okay what's the what?" demanded Buffy.
Conlan then proceeded to ramble on about what had transpired that day to Buffy, Willow, and Tara.
"So you think she is an agent for Emicia?" asked Tara.
"I don't know what to think. I mean normally I can read anyone's minds and feel what anyone is feeling. The only way to stop that is by the spell I mentioned before." Conlan explained.
"What do you think we should do Buffy? If Conlan can't enter her mind, should we be worried?" asked Willow.
"I don't know. I imagine so. Conlan, with the help of Willow and Tara do you think you can enter her mind?"
"Maybe, when we do combine our powers, my abilities are greatly enhanced."
The witches clasped hands and Conlan entered telepathy mode and then felt everyone in the entire world. He could hear everyone's thoughts. He focused the power to channel down to the Magic Box. He heard Dawn, Elisha, Elijah, Buffy, Willow, and Tara's thoughts. With the combined power of Willow, Tara, and himself, he could sense Maria's presence, yet couldn't get a read off her. Conlan took a breath and mentally ran at Maria to get into her brain.
Willow, Tara, and Conlan fell backwards onto their backs, each sporting bloody noses. They sat up and placed their hands to their noses, and pulled them back and grimaced when they saw the blood. They slowly rose as Elisha, Dawn, and Elijah came running back into the training room.
"What the hell happened? One moment we're talking to Maria about school. When suddenly her head snapped around and looked back here. She then said she had to leave to help her parents unpack. What happened?" asked Elisha.
Conlan was still ridding his power high and he breathed, "Damn. Talk about your power rushes. I've never felt that much power in my life. I felt like I was connected to every person on the Earth. Anyway, Willow and Tara aided me in my attempts to read Maria's mind and we went towards her mind and we were flung back like we ran into a brick wall. We landed on our backs and we sported bloody noses. God my nose hurts." stated Conlan.
"So she defiantly is evil?" asked Elijah.
"No not necessarily. She could just be packing some serious mojo." Tara simply stated.
"What do you think we should do?" asked Dawn.
"We should investigate her. I mean she seems nice enough but the whole snap of the neck looking back here, kind of makes me wonder about her.", " stated Buffy, "Maybe you guys could combine your powers and see if you can see where Maria lives."
Elisha watched as Conlan, Willow, and Tara combined hands and they were suddenly encased in white light. They light covered their bodies and. An invisible wind blew back their hair. Elisha reached into her pocket to get a stake, just incase anything happened, when Buffy hit her hand saying "this is what happened last time."
The light died off and the trio dropped their hands. They move around and then Willow said "We felt her moving about the house next to us."
"That's not good. Why would she move into the house next to us?" asked Dawn.
"Okay, now I am full of freaksome. How could they move into the house next to ours? There was never a For Sale sign on the grounds. This is definitely bad. No t only is Emicia the strongest demon we have come across, but having him know where we live?"
"What do we do? You guys can't do anything involving the Hellmouth or magick now since they are there. Did she have anyone in there besides her? Like parents or other people?" asked Elijah.
"We did sense a man and woman bout Giles' age. But we can't tell if they are to be related by blood or not, and we can't enter the house, it has some type of barrier or wall around it." stated Tara.
"I take that that is a bad thing. If the only way to block telepathy and empathy is through a spell, and that is only for one person. I'm guessing it requires even more power to block an entire house." ventured Elisha.
"Correct, this is now a major problem. We, now have to investigate the house entirely. We must keep a very close eye on Maria and see what she does." explained Conlan.
"Agreed, now let us do research this, and you go finish your homework." Buffy ordered.
The group nodded and returned to their work. When the sun set, they had finished their work. Elisha, Dawn, and Elijah grabbed stakes and bottles of holy water, and left to patrol.
They broke up into pairs, Conlan and Elisha, and Dawn and Elijah. They went to separate graveyards. Conlan and Elisha walked hand in hand and looked for fresh graves or other dark creatures. Suddenly they heard a scream. They took off towards the sound. As they rounded a tombstone, they saw a girl being knocked down by a vampire.
"Hey isn't that girl, Mana Toka?" asked Conlan.
"You mean that self centered little bitch?" replied Elisha.
"Yeah," replied Conlan, "should we stop the vamp?"
"Yeah, we should."
"Oh man…"
They rushed at the vamp and his prey, but another vampire jumped out from behind a mausoleum and knocked Conlan away. Elisha lashed out at it, and they were matched arm for arm.
Conlan rose and was about to help out when Elisha yelled, "Freeze the other one!" Conlan brought up his hands to freeze the other vampire, but Elisha's vamp took the moment of hesitation on Elisha's front and threw her at Conlan.
She collided with him and they went down, the wind knocked out of them. The other vampire went to snack with his brother vampire. When their prey's body went limp, they both rose with fruit punch mouths. "Toim, it should be easy finishing off the slayer and her pal."
The other vampire, Toim, nodded and they walked over to the bodies and went down to start feeding, when Conlan flicked his wrist at his vampire and sent him flying. He got up and went after it. Elisha kicked her vampire away from her and rose as well.
Conlan then flung his vampire away from him and into a conveniently placed tree limb, causing him to dust.
Elisha knocked down her vampire and reached for the stake in her back pocket. But she didn't find it. She cursed as she continued to fight her vampire.
She grabbed the tacky jacket of the vampire and flung him away. "Conlan can you see my stake?" she yelled.
Conlan looked around him and saw it. "Stake!" he called. It orbed out and back into his hand. He then orbed into Elisha's awaiting hand.
As the vampire was running at her, she held up the stake and it ran right into it. She beat off the dust and walked over to Mana's body where Conlan was standing.
"We should probably burn the corpse. She might have been turned." Elisha stated.
"Mana Toka was your name, you shall be consumed by magic flame, it shall burn you to a cinder, but to the grass it will not hinder." Conlan chanted.
A fire erupted on Mana's skin and the body disappeared taking the flame with it.
I would like to extend a huge thank you to all of those who have reviewed for this story. It means a lot. I am wondering if any of you would like to be a beta. E-mail me at if you are interested.
Thank you again reviewers!