See first chapter for disclaimers.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Storyseeker for beta-reading this. As usual, if you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy. RandR.
PREVIOUSLY: Star Wars: Rebels
Demon Hunters V ?
"So where are we now?" Faith grumbled, looking around the darkened corridor. There were no windows and the widely placed electric lights revealed grey-painted concrete and steel doors. Xander looked about the place curiously, like her, looking for some clue. None of the doors were labeled and there didn't seem to be any signs posted. Before he could muster a response, an alarm sounded.
"I'm guessing somewhere we're not supposed to be."
They went to a door at random to get out of the corridor even as they heard the sound of running feet. They managed the door and got it closed in time, finding themselves in a store room of some sort. They hid and waited for the commotion in the hall to die down.
Faith took a peek outside. "Huh. Military. Looks like we're on an army base or something."
"Let's try to get out of here," Xander suggested. "After the Initiative, places like this give me the creeps." Faith nodded, fine with not getting caught trespassing on a military base. They had only made it a short distance, though, when they were confronted, but not by a soldier.
"Ah ha! I have found you, intruders!" The speaker dropped down in front of them. It was clearly female, yellow-skinned, and had two back-curved hons. She carried a spear that crackled menacingly and produced lightning when she banged the butt of the spear on the floor. "You will surrender now or be destroyed!"
"Don't think so, demon!" Faith growled, not liking the idea of being ordered about by something she was used to hunting. She launched herself at the demon who met her attack with a disturbing cheerfulness. They were fairly evenly matched, especially after an unexpected burst of speed and a solid kick separated the demoness and her spear. Although Xander's fighting skills had improved remarkably during their travels, he knew he could not compete with Faith and something capable of giving her trouble. So, he stayed back and kept an eye out for whatever backup the demon might have coming. That backup arrived when the demon disengaged from Faith briefly and let out a piercing whistle.
A beast that looked like it ate bears for breakfast came bounding down the hall. Xander took in the bug-eyed, purple-skinned, drooling monstrosity and made a decision. Hurling a box from the store-room at the thing's head, he took off, leading it away from the fight.
"Xander!" Faith shouted after him.
"Don't worry!" he called back, as he dodged the monster dog-thing. "You deal with the demoness. I'll find a way to screw the pooch."
"Ha!" the demoness mocked as she tried to cave in Faith's head. "Vornicarn will tear him apart!"
"Not likely," Faith answered confidently. "He's faced worse."
They returned to the interrupted battle, but it was soon interrupted again, this time by human troops accompanied by a bug-like demon with comically oversized eyes and antenna on top of its head. It looked to Faith like a humanoid cockroach. The creature carried a bizarre looking weapon, which it pointed at her. "That's quite enough of that."
"I was having fun," the yellow demoness complained.
Pounding footsteps from the other direction told Faith that she was surrounded. Xander rounded the corner ahead of another group of soldiers led by a human woman with short white hair and some kind of fish-man demon. Her partner skidded to a stop and raised his hands in resignation. Faith shrugged and followed his example.
"Where's the pooch?" Faith asked.
"Locked him in one of the rooms down the next corridor. Looked like a lab of some kind."
The cockroach looked alarmed at this news and rushed off, as the rest marched them at gunpoint to the office of a man wearing the uniform of an army general. He scowled at them.
"Do you two have any idea how much trouble you're in? Do you even know what you've broken into?"
They were marched at gunpoint to the office of a man wearing the uniform of an army general. He scowled at them.
"Do you two have any idea how much trouble you're in? Do you even know what you've broken into?"
"Do you know where we've broken into?" Faith asked, ignoring the fuming military officer.
"If this were home," Xander snorted. "I'd guess, the Initiative, take two." The general looked confused.
"Didn't that end kind of ugly?" Faith asked.
"I was there when it all went wrong. Forty percent casualties. If it hadn't been for Buffy and the rest of us, it would've been 100%, and Adam would be marching across the world with an army of cyborg demons. It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now." He glanced at the odd collection of creatures in the room, which now included a Jell-O mold with one eye. "Probably only a matter of time 'fore this guy," he nodded absently toward the general, "winds up like Walsh."
"Are you…" the general had stopped looking confused and started looking angry. "Are you comparing me to that psycho that experimented on her own troops?!" The sheer volume made the two demon hunters wince. "The Initiative was shut down, filled with concrete, and the files were buried so deep even I can't access them. No one wants to see a crap storm like that again. And just 'cause Uncle Sam may or may not owe Miss Summers does not give her people license to waltz into my base any time they please."
What he had said suddenly registered with the two. "Could we be-?" Faith started to ask.
"Don't get your hopes up," Xander cautioned.