Everything either belongs to Joss or it should, no infringement is intended and no profit is to be made. When you get right down to it I'm not really worth suing anyway unless you want a share of an underpaid civil servants wages and it just wouldn't be worth the hassle trust me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Great Northern Forest – Pylea – April 2004
The appropriate phrase would be a "target rich environment", another way of looking at it would be there were so many of the damn things you didn't really have to aim, it was more like scything through them with your rifle, simply hold down the trigger until the magazine ran dry and reload fast before a pissed off demon got close enough to introduce you to his disturbingly large set of claws.
The magazines on the G36K were designed so you could clip them together for quick reloading without having to do the old trick with the adhesive tape. As soon as her first thirty rounds were expended Vi pulled the empty clip, turned it around and snapped the second of the three magazines she had clipped together into place. She was about to start firing again when the first of a series of grenades detonated amongst the closest packed groups of demons as they emerged from their trenches and dugouts. Some of the girls were carrying the six chambered grenade launchers which had proved so useful since they first tried them out in Sunnydale and now the opposition were out in the open they had something worth using them on. 'Don't waste the grenades' Vi cautioned, yelling at the top of her lungs. They weren't cheap and more importantly they only had so many of the things.
They had delivered other new hardware from Earth too, a pair of belt fed light machineguns, which fired the same ammunition as the rifles but with a higher rate of fire and the added benefit of a two-hundred round box instead of a thirty round magazine. 'Get some' Charlotte howled defiantly at the demons, her face contorted into a savage grin as her machinegun chewed through the advancing enemy, they were somehow still closing despite the hail of gunfire being directed at them, seemingly unconcerned by the sight of their compatriots falling in droves under the guns of the slayers. The weapons stock pressed itself hard into her shoulder as she swept it from side to side showering the unfortunate slayer next to her with a continual rain of hot empty brass cartridge cases.
'Jailbait stop enjoying yourself this is supposed to be serious shit' one of the other experienced gunslayers yelled at her, as the ammunition belt finally ran out and a grinning Charlotte pulled the empty box off her weapon and unhooked another from her equipment harness.
'Better than sex' Charlotte yelled back as she reloaded in a hurry. The barrel on the was starting to glow after the sustained fire, she was now on her fourth box and by rights she should be thinking about changing the barrel over, not that she was in any position to be taking her weapon apart right now. Hopefully it wouldn't jam, or worse yet a round wouldn't cook off prematurely with the heat and blow her hand off or some shit like that Charlotte thought.
'Better than sex? How the hell would you know?' the other slayer replied laughing. The newbies nearby who were fighting for their lives as far as they were concerned decided the girls who been here a while must have got nuts because who else could laugh and joke at a time like this?
'Why don't you kiss my ass' Charlotte replied. 'You too' she added as she started firing into the demons again. If sex really was more fun that this it would explain why so many people made such a fuss about it she considered.
As the range closed the rounds started to punch all the way through the first demon they struck and kept going slamming into the next one behind. 'Hey newbie' she called to the girl to her left. 'Welcome to Pylea' she told her, starting to laugh manically as she reloaded her rifle again.
'The guns aren't stopping them' one of the new arrivals cried out. The battlefield was already littered with demon corpses but more kept coming, scrambling over the bodies of their fallen comrades. She had faced demons and vampires before back on Earth but this was entirely different, they were an unstoppable horde, a sea of fangs and claws intent on ripping her to shreds. Grenades blew holes in the enemy ranks, full-auto gunfire from dozens of slayers tore into them but they were so tough anything short of an instant kill or numerous hits wouldn't drop them.
One of the slayers carrying a grenade launcher dropped it once she fired off the last round and drew both her short sword with her left hand and then her automatic pistol with her right. She half turned to see Illyria standing nearby arms fully outstretched, a five foot long sword held in each and a smile on her face. The slayer decided to keep well clear once the God-King started swinging those things about, it was a great way to get accidentally decapitated.
Firing from half a mile away Rika had long since fired off the single five round magazine of the XM109 she was permitted to expend and was now instead firing again and again with her normal sniper rifle, it got the job done but it was just terribly anticlimactic to use after firing the oversized rifle, she decided sadly, as she blew another demons brains out and then worked the bolt on the rifle. It looked like the girls were about to go hand-to-hand down there, or at least sword and bayonet-to-claw, and Rika was much happier being where she was. Anyone, or at least any slayer could fight that way but she was officially the best shot with a rifle of any of them which made her special. If you've got a talent it's a shame to waste it so while the other girls who hadn't been in the initial charge were now sprinting to join the group, Denise and her mortar crew for example, Rika was staying where she was and taking out the highest ranking and larger enemies before they could either restore some cohesion to the enemy ranks or smash a girls brains out with a hundred pound club.
Almost as far from the action Wesley watched with trepidation as the demon mass finally reached the slayer line and it all got extremely messy. Many of the girls quickly abandoned their rifles and went to work with swords as a melee battle broke out but some were still firing point-blank into the mob using their bayonets when needed, thrusting steel into guts and wrenching it back out ready to strike again if necessary. Such was the strength of the slayers that sometimes the gun-barrels was driven into the flesh too, Wesley imagined he could actually hear and smell the demon blood sizzling against the hot metal as the girls, fighting as a solid line, began to settle into almost as rhythm as they relentlessly stabbed, slashed and hack their way through the foe.
Illyria moved to a position on the far left flank and simply started walking slowly forwards swinging her twin swords about. It wasn't a comparison Wesley would make to her since she would be unlikely to appreciate it but if he had to describe the image and effect he would have probably said "Food Processor". Illyria moved and slew with a smooth economic style that was almost mechanistic and anything in the way was cleaved in two by the blades. Even demons wearing armour didn't stand a chance, Illyria's swords were sharper than a razor, enchanted to keep their edge, made of the same alloys as the new scythes but constructed far thicker and heavier and perhaps most importantly they were being swung by a demon god who could bench-press a truck. One large demon that tried to parry the blow had a split second to watch as his own sword was simply knocked aside before Illyria weapon, barely diverted from its course took both his head clean off and the two demons standing beside him.
In the distant past and then in her original form Illyria had always wielded two blades in such battles which were even larger than these, if nowhere near as advanced mystically or metallurgically, and it was highly pleasurable to do so again. One thing the God-King had noticed quickly was that you got better overall balance and control with hands, the thumbs were especially useful, but she still missed the feeling of holding swords with tentacles, there was so much more variety of movement she recalled as she continued to do battle against the innumerable but pathetic foe. Her own armies would have been far more of a challenge to the slayers than this rabble she decided as she cut a swathe of destruction through the forces of Sebassis and his masters, the Wolf, Ram and Hart. 'Feel my wrath vermin' she thundered. 'Bow your heads or lose them to my steel.'
'Magnificent' Wesley declared, watching her through his binoculars.
'I'd have gone with bloody terrifying myself' Stirling replied, then frowned as he watched the slayers work. 'And not just her, what have you and the Foreign Legion chappies been teaching these girls?' he asked. The odds had started out better than ten to one down there but by the time the demons got close enough to fight back they were scarcely half that and dropping fast as the slayer line acted like a buzzsaw the demons threw themselves against. Stronger, faster and with better reactions the slayers were pure viciousness up close and the blood must have been running like a small river by their feet. The old slayer way of fighting had a style, an art to it, this was more like mechanical butchery, repeat the same moves over and over again, just keep going until there's nothing left in from of you to kill.
Wesley shrugged. 'How to win' he replied evenly. 'The price of defeat is too high to countenance anything else.'
Stirling nodded, it was perhaps unfortunate but nonetheless inevitable that in these circumstances the almost chivalric nature of the slayer life, born from single combat against the foe and romantic notions of the lone warrior against the darkness was going to fall by the wayside.
The elderly watcher attempted to observe dispassionately, once young Wesley returned to Earth he was going to be in charge and he needed to know what he was up against and what he had to work with. As ever the demons fought as a disorganised rabble, they might have been a greater threat if they had not lost so many officers to sniper fire, or been shaken up by the mortar bombardment, but as it was they reminded him more of football hooligans smashing into a line of riot police on the television news than an Army. No, not that, he decided, it was more like watching the professional Legionaries of Ancient Rome take apart a barbarian horde Stirling realised as he remembered his schooldays and reading in Tacitus of how ten thousand Romans had defeated near a quarter of a million Britons led by Boadicea, killing perhaps eighty thousand for a mere four hundred losses to themselves.
Wesley couldn't help but feel proud as Illyria continued to slaughter all comers with her blades, nothing could stand against her, some of the demons were starting to look reluctant to even try as the ground around her became slick with blood and entrails, bodies and parts of bodies piled up in gruesome heaps. My girl, he thought to himself happily as the unremitting carnage went on and on.
Resting nearby on a tree stump she had cleaned as best she could before sitting down Glory checked her nails. She was more than relieved Illyria had ordered her to merely observe the battle and only get involved if necessary, acting as a reserve force. All that demon blood was bound to get in her hair she if was down there and she was still trying to get over being told they washed in a river, an actual river for pities sake. This place really was starting to look like the ass-end of the multiverse, the Hellgod decided as she checked out her reflection in a vanity mirror she pulled from a pocket on the ill-shapen camouflage jacket the Blue Bitch was making her wear. Still beautiful of course, Glory determined, studying her reflection closely before putting the mirror away again and going back to watching the battle, she hoped it wasn't going to be this boring every day.
Warehouse District – Cleveland – April 2004
Stephen sat cross-legged in the centre of the room surrounded by swords, polishing them one at a time with a piece of cloth, methodically cleaning them one at a time of every trace of dirt or grease before returning each sword to its scabbard and moving to the next.
Kennedy grinned, it would have almost been a Zen thing, watching a master at work, that is if he wasn't also listening to music on his iPod and rocking his head to the beat of whatever tune he was listening to as he worked. 'Someone give D'Artagnon a kick when its time to get something to eat, he'd play with those things all night otherwise' she told the girls sat on the couch watching TV as the young watcher finished polishing the sword and held it up to the light to look for anything he might have missed.
'Why is it he'll spend all day polishing and sharpening swords, knives, or his car, and they'll be spotless but ask him to clean some windows and they're crap?' one of the girls asked.
'Because he enjoys cleaning those things and his car, but if he's crap at windows he might not have to do it again' Kennedy replied.
'So is that why he doesn't cook either?' another slayer asked. She was new, one of three extra girls transferred to Cleveland as reinforcements given the Berith situation.
Kennedy shook her head. 'No he doesn't mind cooking' she replied, 'that's because we let him a couple of times and we don't want him to do it again.'
'I heard that' Stephen interjected. The battery was getting low on his iPod and he had just switched it off.
'You gave us blood' Shannon interjected, heading from the kitchen with a can of soda, 'I swear to God, actual blood, to eat' she declared. 'We're vampire slayers, not vampires.'
'It was black pudding and you didn't object until I told you what it was' the watcher pointed out, reasonably he thought.
'Greasy congealed blood which you fried up in lard' Shannon added. 'I only ate it because it looked a bit less likely to give me a coronary than the bacon and eggs you had served up with it.'
'All that iron would have been good for you and since when did slayers have trouble keeping off weight?' Stephen asked. 'I'll do the scythe if you want' he offered. 'I'm certain you lot enjoy holding it too much to ever clean it properly' he stated.
Kennedy thought about it. 'Okay, you might as well earn your keep somehow.'
'Hey I've more than earned my meagre pay recently' Stephen retorted as Kennedy went to fetch it from where it was hanging up in the arms locker. 'It's not like any of you wooden stake flingers knew anything about Phoenician mythology' he noted.
'Just don't get in the way when the action starts' Kennedy told him, returning with her scythe which she passed down to him almost reluctantly, instantly missing the buzz you got off it which she thought was even greater for her than the others, the new scythes felt like Willow somehow which for Kennedy was wonderful and couldn't help but make her smile.
Stephen took the scythe and looked it over, it wouldn't rust but it wasn't as clean and shiny as it could have been. 'Did somebody wipe this off with one of the kitchen cloths?' he asked. 'It smells like coffee' he said, getting to work.
'If anybody did I'm going to kick their ass' Kennedy declared coldly, looking around for a guilty face. Most of the girls were elsewhere though and it wasn't likely the responsible party would coincidentally be there.
Shannon took a swig from her can of drink. 'So what's the plan with Berith when he turns up?' she asked.
'Big demon plus shiny scythe equals two or more smaller pieces of demon' Kennedy replied with a chuckle. 'If it gets bad we can have a couple of hundred slayers on the ground within a day, less if Illyria's around to Portal them in.'
'I do hope that's not hubris rearing its ugly head' Stephen observed from his position on the floor. 'Pride goeth before a fall.'
'Demons falleth before the hot chicks with the pointy sticks' Kennedy responded with a grin. 'Plan is for Buffy and Faith to be here with their scythes too plus Willow and Wes if we need some magicks thrown about, maybe Illyria too for major league backup. It'll make the resources we took into the Hellmouth to fight the First and his army look downright wussy I'm telling you.'
'Whatever you say but I'm still going to insist on an extra hours training per day from each of you' Stephen told them. 'You might be the hot chicks with pointy sticks but I'm the sadistic git with the pokey one' he declared. 'Lots more getting hit with my bamboo cane in fencing practice from now on I'm afraid ladies.'
Shannon groaned. Why couldn't she be a better shot? If she was she could be in Pylea instead.
Great Northern Forest – Pylea – April 2004
Stirling scratched his arm. He had been told the glyphs painted on his body sometimes made the wearer itch for a week or so after application and he was one of the unfortunates to which that happened. He understood the need to wear the symbols on your skin, it buggered up the ability of mages and seers on the other side to detect and track you, and even made using spells against you tricky because they threw off targeting, but he just hoped they were right that the damn things could be removed once he went home because he'd look ridiculous going to a sauna with his body covered in what looked like tattoos applied by a lunatic.
The watcher spotted something as he looked around 'Bloody hell' Stirling swore and physically turned Wesley around facing him Eastwards as something raced towards them along the road. The human mercenaries down there must have radioed for assistance once the mortars started landing and a large wheeled armoured vehicle was now rolling towards the battle, kicking up dust as it went.
They knew that Wolfram and Hart used these things in their Holding Dimensions, Illyria had told them of wrecking two armoured troop carriers during an excursion to one in the original timeline but it was still nonetheless an unwelcome visitor especially given that under closer examination with binoculars it seemed to be mounting a heavy machinegun in a small turret on top. Wesley didn't doubt the crew would happily fire into both slayers and demons once they had line-of-sight. 'I'm take one of the RPG's and try to tag it' Wesley announced and looked around for one of the Rocket Propelled Grenade Launchers they had bought along, though more in case they met a particularly large demon than expecting the arrival of enemy armour.
'I don't think that's necessary my boy' Stirling responded, indicating something else.
Wolfram and Hart had picked up a number of these eight-wheeled BTR-70 APC's after the collapse of the USSR thinking they'd be handy. They weren't exactly built for comfort, at speed they rattled around enough to shake your teeth loose and any half-decent rocket-launcher would blow them all to hell but they were immune to small arms fire and carried a decent heavy machinegun in a tiny turret to give it some punch. They were riding into a combat situation, a squad of troops in the back ready for action, a man in the turret and the driver with the hatch closed, looking at the world through a tiny armoured glass slit which restricted his view so much he didn't even see the blur coming straight down the road towards them.
Kicking up almost as much dust as the APC the fast moving streak suddenly became solid directly in front of them and the driver by reflex slammed on the brakes before it somehow jumped right on top of the vehicle in what must have been a thirty foot leap.
Wesley watched as Glory landed on top of the armoured vehicle, took hold of the small turret and ripped it clean off, throwing the thing to the side.
The gunner suddenly found himself with his head sticking out of a hole in the top of the APC where his turret had just been, looking straight at an extremely attractive blond woman wearing military clothing and what honestly looked like an apologetic expression. 'It's nothing personal' she told him and promptly grabbed his head, twisted it clean off and threw it away as she had the turret itself.
Glory jumped off the APC landing beside it. She seized hold of the side of the thing and with some effort on her part, it did after all weigh almost fourteen tonnes, she turned it over onto its side before moving to the rear and ripping the back doors off. Wesley stopped watching when she climbed in and parts of the men inside started flying back out. 'So much for that then' he said in an off-handed manner, and went back to watching the main event as the demon army continued to dwindle in number.
Wesley could see that some of the slayers had fallen, only wounded he hoped as their chain-mail armour and intrinsic resistance to physical impact damage should help protect them from the worst effects of enemy swords and clubs, but it was certainly possible that slayers also lay dead amongst the demon corpses carpeting the ground. Any that were merely wounded, even in ways that would have been mortal by human standards would almost certainly recover but if any of the girls were dead down there they wouldn't have been the first to end their days on Pylea nor likely the last. There was a price to be paid for victory, the only redeeming thing about it was its lightness compared to the cost of defeat.
Fighting as they had been trained the slayers fought as a unit not a rabble, soldiers not warriors. A warrior might defeat a soldier in single combat, a dozen warriors match a dozen soldiers in a skirmish but as the numbers grew on each side the balance of effectiveness more and more favoured organisation and discipline over raw courage and the demons surfeit of the latter was no match for the slayers monopoly of the former. The girls simply gutted and smashed aside anything in front of them, each slayer supported by the one on their left and right.
'I suspect they may have problems adjusting to being back home' Wesley opined as the slayer line continued to slaughter demons en-masse. They were approaching the end game now, pressure on the slayer line slackening while the girls themselves weren't letting up on the enemy.
Stirling nodded. 'I would have to concur' he agreed. 'Bloody useful in a scrap though' he added, watching one girl head-butt the demon directly in front of her while sticking her short-sword through the throat of the next.
'Oh yes' Wesley agreed. 'You've got to feel sorry for the next bastard who thinks he can start an apocalypse back on Earth, we'll just drop a couple of dozen of these hellions on him and stand back.'
A deafening screech caught Wesley by surprise and he span to see a shape in the sky heading towards them.
'Well I'll be buggered' Stirling said in amazement. 'It's a ruddy dragon.'
'Air support I suppose' Wesley responded evenly. 'We'd better shoot the bloody thing down before it torches the girls' he declared, flicking on his radio. Bullets wouldn't stop it and he'd rather try something else before firing off another Eighty-Thousand Dollars worth of Surface-to-Air Missile. 'Rika' he said. 'There's a dragon approaching from the South, you should be well in range with that cannon of yours before it can try a strafing run.'
Rika put her Sniper Rifle down and picked up the XM109 again, aiming to the south as she pulled back the cocking handle. She had reloaded it ready in case it was needed. 'Ready' she announced as the Dragon entered her field of view, almost seeming to slowly lumber through the sky.
Wesley picked up one of their SA-14 shoulder-launched missiles just in case the girl missed, as he did a random thought crossed his mind and despite the gravity of the situation he couldn't help but grin. 'Rika' he said. 'Chap with wings, five rounds rapid' he ordered.
The sound of the oversized rifle firing boomed across the battlefield as Vi prepared to order a final charge to finish off the enemy and inwardly bemoaned the fact they didn't have a flag to raise afterwards. It just seemed like there was something missing without a nice flag, she thought to herself regretfully as Rika shot down a dragon and wondered if she was going to get a bonus for that. Well at least Perković, who was still back at camp teaching the locals to shoot would be jealous she decided but she did expect him to note that while they were keeping score on sniper kills with each other, the dragon still only counted as one.
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