Chapter 11

Strike

The air in Los Angeles seemed different than the place that they had come from. There was an evil to it, and he could tell that everyone in their group could sense this. They had come from Qubec to see if the rumours were true; that a vampire army was being formed like no other that had been formed, and that Angelus was leading it. They were all vampires, all ten of them, and some of them were quite old and strong. That was one advantage with vampirism, the older you got, the stronger you became. Among them were some of the oldest vampires he knew, one of which, Malest, he knew was at least a thousand years old. It was he who had come up with the idea that they had now. They were going to approach Angelus, which they had all heard about, and make him an offer. Everyone in the group was to be given a leadership role in this so called army that was being formed, and in return, they'll increase the army's numbers as this small band of ten vampires that was representing the main vampire group of Qubec, Vice, which numbered in the hundreds.

Malest knew where to go, he had been to LA before, and he knew the place that Angelus was said to reside. It was said that he resided in the underground of the city, and Malest was sure of the place which Angelus would pick.

The group was walking down a wide street which seemed deserted when they saw three figures come running around a corner, straight for them. Malest could tell that they were vampires.

"Why are there vampires running from something in this city? The city where the most organised and the largest vampire army is meant to be under creation?" one of the vampires said to Malest.

"I honestly don't know," Malest replied. The answer was soon given to them as another figure rounded the corner, and then three more came around the corner, obviously giving pursuit to the vampires.

The group just watched as crossbow bolts were fired and one vampire turned to dust. The group just stood back and watched what was going to happen. The figure in the lead closed the gap between the vampires and in a couple of seconds, another had turned to dust as the figure beheaded it with a sword. The last vampire was remaining, and it tried to attack the figure, but the figure was a better fighter, and soon the vampire was on the ground, and a stake protruding from it's heart.

They all watched as the unknown figures grouped together to discuss their next move, not having sighted Malest's group further down the street.

Connor was tired from chasing the vampires and fighting off the last one of the group. Wesley, Fred and Gunn couldn't keep up with him, and he was getting annoyed at that. Sure, he liked the fact that Fred and Wesley had crossbows and had finished off most of the vampire group from a distance, but he was sick of doing all the fighting. Connor was sure that Gunn would get into the action, if he could have kept up with him and gotten to the vampires before they were all dead. They had left the hotel, deciding that Cordelia and the new mystery girl would be safe enough. It was Wesley's idea to go out onto the town, hunting, and with one purpose, to kill as many vampires as they could find. So far, they had gotten eight between the four of them, including that last group. Unfortunately, however none of them had heard of Angelus's army that Cordelia had told them that he was raising under orders from The First.

Connor sensed movement further down the road, and turned his head just in time to see a lone vampire coming down the road, starting to clap.

"I'm impressed with your performance," he shouted out into the night. Connor heard everyone turn towards him, and could see Wesley and Fred raise their crossbows towards him and Gunn tighten his grip on his axe.

"Explain to us why we shouldn't dust you where you stand?" Connor replied to the vampire.

"Go ahead and try," was all that was given in reply. Simultaneously Fred and Wesley both released a crossbow bolt each, both of which headed straight for the vampire's heart. Amazingly, the vampire caught both of the crossbow bolts in each of his hands. Connor was surprised at this, and he was just about to charge at the vampire, but stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a number of other vampires coming towards them down the road. He watched as the vampire threw the crossbow bolts back towards the group. Wesley dodged one that was heading towards him. Fred didn't have that luxury however, the crossbow bolt hitting her in the lower leg. She screamed out in pain and fell to the ground, holding her leg.

Connor sprang to his feet and charged at the vampire. When he was ten feet away from it, he jumped into a spinning kick which he was sure was going to knock the vampire to the ground. Instead, Connor fell to the ground after the vampire had caught his leg in mid air. Luckily, he still held his sword, and he struck out against the vampire, hoping to hit the arm which was holding his leg. Instead, the vampire saw it coming and with an unnatural speed moved his arm out of the way. Connor quickly jumped to his feet and without giving the vampire any time to think, was on him again. He successfully punched the vampire in the chest, and then gave it a hook across the face. In return, the vampire blocked Connor's next attack and pushed him away with so much force that Connor lost his footing, again, and fell to the ground.

"You're not human," The vampire said to him. "You're too strong and fast for that. Why do you fight for them, you could easily come over to us… So much anger. So much hatred. It could serve you well," the vampire said to him. Connor sprang to his feet.

"All that hatred. It's for one of you. One of you vampires," he just replied before he charged at the vampire again. Connor saw Gunn beside him, attacking another vampire that had come from the group that had been approaching them. It occurred to him that they were vastly out numbered, and that Fred was hurt and that they had to get out of the area immediately. Connor faked to punch the vampire, and actually kicked it in the kneecap as hard as he could, making the vampire go down onto it's knees. Connor raised his sword to take off it's head when he was spear tackled by another vampire and thrown to the ground.

"You aren't going to kill Malest that easily," it said. Connor kicked it off of him and rolled to his feet, punching the vampire in the face and then tripping it onto the ground. He saw Gunn fighting off two vampires with his axe, and he saw that there were more coming from down the road.

"Come on Gunn, we've got to get out of here," he shouted over to him. He ran over to Gunn and stuck his sword through the stomach of one of the vampires from behind, sending it to the ground. He then cut off it's head just as Gunn managed to cut off the head of the other vampire he was fighting. They didn't have enough time to make a retreat before more vampires were onto them. Connor looked over to see that the vampire that was called Malest was coming towards them.

Just then, three vampires out of the group turned to dust, and Connor saw more figures approaching at a sprint from further down the street. He was surprised to see these new figures, five of them, attacking the vampires as well.

"We've got help," he heard Gunn say to him. Connor just grunted in agreement as he moved to take on Malest. He put both hands around the handle of his sword and swung diagonally down, trying to hit Malest any way he could, but the vampire saw the attack coming and jumped back out of the way. This left a huge gap for the vampire to attack Connor, and too late, Connor realised this. He received a kick to his mid-section which sent him stumbling backwards and made him drop his sword. He saw a punch coming after that and successfully blocked it with his arm and hit back with an uppercut to the chest of the vampire, which hardly did a thing to it. Connor then received an uppercut straight to the face which sent him flying backwards onto the ground. When he looked up, he expected to see Malest coming for him, ready to kill, but instead he saw nothing. He sat up, and he noticed that all the sounds of the fight had disappeared, and that all the vampires were gone. He also noticed a hatch in the road to the sewer systems was open, and guessed that the vampire had escaped through that.

He got up and saw that Gunn, who had blood pouring down his face and many bruises was approaching some of the strange figures that had helped them out during the fight, and when Connor had gotten to his feet, he could tell that they were all girls. He walked up to Gunn who had just reached the group.

"Thanks for the help, if you didn't come we'd be dead by now," Gunn said to them.

"We just saw the fight from down the road and decided to help out," one of the girls replied. Connor noticed that they all carried equipment for fighting vampires.

"And you were just walking down the street in the middle of the night, just happening to be carrying crossbows and stakes?" Connor questioned them, obviously suspicious. All of the girls looked at Connor for a few moments before one of them spoke up.

"Our headquarters was attacked and destroyed by a group of vampires earlier tonight, and we were heading to a safe house that we were told to go to by our trainers," one of the girls said.

"Headquarter? Headquarters to what?" Gunn asked.

"The Watchers Council," one of the girls replied. "We're potentials, and the Watchers Council's headquarters in Los Angeles was our home away from home, until now," one of the girls replied.

"Potentials?" Connor asked.

"Potential Slayers," one of the girls replied. After a confused expression from Connor, the girl continued on. "You do know what a Slayer is don't you?"

"Yes, we know both of them," Connor replied. He was met by baffled expressions from the girls.

"You know the Slayers?" one of the girls asked.

"Well, we don't really know them. We know of both of them," Connor started.

"We've run into Faith a couple of times," Gunn said. "And one member of our group, he's an Ex-Watcher. He knows the other one, what's her name, Bunny…" he started

"Buffy," one of the girls corrected him.

"Yeah, that's it. Wait, where's Wesley and Fred?" Gunn said to no one in particular.

"Don't worry, I saw them heading the opposite way down the street, they should be safe," Connor said.

"We'd better go after them and make sure they're alright," Gunn said. He paused for a second or two before continuing. "Do you all want to come with us? We've got a place, and it's safe, and we could use the added numbers." The main potential who had been doing all of the talking turned to her counterparts and they murmured a few words before she turned back to Connor and Gunn.

"Yeah, we'll come with you," she said with a small Australian accent. Together, Connor, Gunn and the Potentials went down the street towards where they could see Wesley and Fred still moving in the opposite direction to where the fight had been.

Cordelia was showing the girl around the Hyperion Hotel, making sure that she knew where everything was in case there was anything she needed. Cordelia could tell that she was making progress, being able to talk more and more as the night went on, and being able to identify things more easily. She didn't want to press the girl on what she could remember yet, it was too early to do that and she knew that the girl needed some rest.

After she had shown the girl around, she guided her to one of the couches where they both just sat down. Cordelia decided to tell the girl about what had happened to her while she was at Angel Investigations, and how it had changed her, both mentally, and physically. She didn't go into depth about what she was now, and her purpose in anything, she didn't want to freak the girl out too much. But Cordelia realised half way through explaining everything that the girl had collapsed in total exhaustion and was now sleeping upright in the couch.

He looked down on the vampire in front of him, he could tell that the vampire was very old, but he didn't know what to make of him. If what he said was true, shouldn't there be more of them. Surely he wouldn't come alone from a vampire group so numerous as to what he said they were, surely he would have brought companions.

"Yes, it is true. A vampire army is being raised here," Angelus spoke for the first time to this vampire that had come in off the streets. He claimed that he was the representative of Vice, a vampire group that resided in Qubec that numbered in the hundreds, and that if he was given a leadership position within the army, hundreds of vampires from Vice would join up. "But why did you come alone?" Angelus asked the vampire.

"I didn't come alone. We were attacked in the street, by four people, a man and what seemed to be a teenage boy. He isn't human, he's too strong and too fast for that," Malest replied to Angelus. We outnumbered them, but then a group of girls showed up carrying crossbows and stakes, and they helped them finish us all off. I only escaped through a sewer entrance in the road," Malest replied. Angel knew that the girls were Potentials. The first had told him about the Watchers Council's headquarters that they had here in LA, and earlier that night, before he learned about the mysterious girl that he had failed to capture, he had told a number of the vampires that were in the army to attack the Headquarters.

"How many of these girls were there?" Angelus asked him.

"About four, or five. Maybe even six," Malest replied. He knew that they must have escaped from the attack against their headquarters, and he guessed that they would be heading back to the Hyperion with Gunn and Connor right now, making it even harder for him to be able to take the girl back again.

"I accept your offer," Angelus replied to Malest. How could he turn down the offer to recruit literally hundreds of vampires at once.

He left Malest alone, and walked into one of the back rooms. He needed to know how to take this girl from the Hyperion Hotel, which he knew now would be a very hard thing to do.

"Now, now, Daddy, don't despair," he heard the all too familiar voice of Druscilla speak from behind him. Angelus turned to see the image of Druscilla standing before him. Of course, he knew that it wasn't Druscilla, but The First. "I've got a little present for you," it said to him.

"A present Dru? And what's that?" Angelus asked.

"Power," The First replied. "It had to happen sooner or later, you being the commander of my army now." In an instant, the image of Druscilla disappeared and an image that Angel had seen years ago in caves under Sunnydale, when The First had decided to haunt him appeared. It was a large demon, with glowing red eyes, and brown skin. It seemed to float above the ground and it was semitransparent. It rushed towards Angelus and entered his body, and he could feel absolute power coursing through him. He could feel himself getting stronger and stronger by the minute. He could feel his eyesight, hearing, and smell intensifying. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, it was over and Angelus was on the floor, gasping for air, even though he didn't need any to survive.

"Now listen here," the image of Druscilla said again. "Tomorrow night, you will go to the Hyperion Hotel, and you will take a number of vampires with you, and you will take the girl from them, and bring her to me," The First said.

"They've got a barrier," Angelus replied.

"That's why you'll take them with you," The First said to Angelus. He looked up from the ground and saw three huge figures, cloaked in black standing before him, and next to the image of Druscilla. "They're called Syophers. They'll get you through the barrier."

Across town Cordelia sat opposite the mysterious girl in the couch, thinking everything over, thinking of what she had to do to prepare everyone, and what may unfold no matter which way the fight went. She knew that people were going to die, a lot of them, some of them which she cared about, but the ultimate goal was to prevent them all from dying. She could sense something going on across town. She knew where it was, and with her mind's eye (the part of the brain which sees things telepathically or psychically) drifted to that part of the town and she observed what was happening as her eyes clouded over.

Minutes later, Cordelia snapped out of her dreamlike state, her eyes instantly going back to normal.

"Oh God, they're coming."

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There's some more… Sorry for the 1/2 year wait until I updated again, but other things came up. I should be working on this more often now..

Good news tho, once I finish this story, I'm going to go back to my other Buffy Series (Slayers Series) and finish that off.

Next update should be coming soon

Read/Review plz.