With the shut steel side door of the factory coming up fast for both of the women rushing towards this entrance, Willow hastily lifted an index finger, to then point this digit at the locked and/or bolted panel in preparation for magically opening it. Otherwise, an impatient Faith would surely kick it down, with the noise from this announcing their presence to everybody inside, something that was so absolutely not such a good idea-
The whole point abruptly became moot, when the door slammed open, and someone else came running full-tilt out of the building. Momentarily flinching away during her dash straight at this person to avoid colliding with them, Faith then saw the ridged face, glowing yellow eyes, and fangs, and the Slayer promptly pulled out a stake from her clothing and she held it ready. In the very next instant, the heedless vampire in his panicky sprint, not shifting his direction the slightest, ran right into the stake and immediately puffed into a cloud of ashes that went swirling along after Faith in the wind of her passage.
As Faith now burst through the open doorway into the factory and started slowing down from her own run while also warily searching for any other potential enemies, she bemusedly thought to herself that what just happened had to have been her easiest vamp kill ever. It was like that demon hadn't even noticed her, and the Slayer felt a prickle of rare apprehension tingle down her spine, as she also remembered seeing for a split-second the look of absolute terror upon the fleeing vampire's deformed features. What exactly could have scared that blood-drinking monster so much?
Now soundlessly slipping through the trash-strewn building corridors in near-absolute darkness, past hulking pieces of machinery that had spent the last couple of decades peacefully rusting away, a baffled Faith, with her heightened senses that easily pierced the gloom, glanced over at her companion, as Willow's intangible body easily drifted through whatever the Slayer had to sidestep. The witch with the perplexed expression on her features over what she'd just witnessed simply shrugged in mutual incomprehension, easily seeing Faith's confused face in the dark with her own magic, and then Willow looked ahead, suddenly raising her right hand in clear warning.
Faith didn't really need this signal, considering she heard quite well ahead the disquieting sounds of objects being loudly smashed and broken, along with numerous terrified voices screaming, with the tremendous uproar all having the Slayer unable to make out any comprehensible words. Coming to a halt in front of a massive, boxcar-sized, corroded apparatus that had probably manufactured its last widget fifty years ago, Faith cautiously peeked around the machine, with a ghostly Willow at her side doing the same.
In the center of the factory, under a shattered skylight that allowed the full moon above to vividly illuminate the fantastic scene, about a dozen vampires and other demons were making their last stand. These monsters were huddled together in a rough circle while grabbing hold of the discarded building materials around themselves and then hurling such things as rotting tables, decaying wooden crates, rusted steel rods, and even chunks of concrete ripped from the structure's floor. All of this rubble went sailing through the air at considerable speeds after being thrown with the more-than-human strength of the demons, to finally crash and shatter against the walls of the factory and other crumbling pieces of building equipment that were becoming even more damaged by these unearthly monsters' desperate actions.
Not that these efforts were in any way successful against the Shadow Court, since every scrap of litter passed through the bodies of those uncanny creatures there with all the effect of tossing a marble through a smoke cloud.
Seeing for the first time what they'd come to investigate, Faith's jaw dropped, as she now understood why those things had been so named. They were…darkened shapes, outlines of something crudely formed like a human or other two-legged being, but within the lines of their forms, there was an absolute blackness that hid any possible clue to identify these things. Even Faith with her Slayer sight that rivaled the keen vision of a falcon was totally unable to peer past the obscurity of the shadows to recognize anything that might indicate race, species, sex, age, or even if they were really alive or not! Hastily shooting a shocked glance at Willow by her side, Faith saw the witch was also staring in total absorption at those seven beings, and the brunette woman went back to her own fascinated observations.
Yes, as mentioned by the Charmed sisters, there were seven of these things, easily discernable despite being spread out in their own, bigger circle around the smaller circle of the demons currently at bay. Drifting a few inches above the ground, just like Willow was presently doing in her ghostly form, there were indeed three big shadows and four smaller shadows. A pair of the undersized shades hovering side-by-side were directly in front of Faith and Willow, and as these New Council members continued watching, one of the vampires easily picked up a large wooden crate still filled with its weighty contents that was resting on the factory floor by that fiend, and right after that, the box was heaved at these shadows.
A dumbfounded Scooby Gang duo saw the crate tumble in the air, as just like everything else thrown, it then went right through both of the unaffected shadows, heading unswervingly at the piece of equipment where Faith and Willow were lurking. The Slayer instantly ducked behind this machinery and dropped to her knees onto the concrete floor, wrapping her arms around her head, just in time to wince at the thunderous crash of the hurled crate shattering into innumerable fragments, as the manufacturing apparatus this box had just collided with shuddered at the impact. Prudently keeping her hands in place as descending debris pattered around Faith, this woman shot an exasperated glance out of the corner of her eye at a totally unaffected ghost-Willow still standing on her feet and watching intently at what was taking place in the center of the factory.
Grumbling under her breath, Faith stood up, bringing down her hands to brush off wooden splinters off her shoulders, and then the woman forgot all abut this, when she caught sight of what was happening before her now. The vampire that had just thrown the wooden crate was hastily backing up, utter terror on his ridged face, until the demon whirled around and dashed away from the circle of trapped monsters, inwards into the middle of this ring, where the vampire then slammed to a stop as his outstretched hands smacked into something invisible. Faith's eyes narrowed, as she looked past the panicked vampire now frantically pounding his fists against a wall of solid air, all while screaming for help from the other demon behind this mystical shield.
In the very center of the factory, this green-scaled demon was dressed in a rather tawdry purple robe with numerous geometric-shaped pieces of crystal inlaid on various points of the robe. Ignoring the vampire outside the protective ward he'd just cast, Ig'yrul the Sorcerer desperately tried to use his supernatural powers to find out just what had attacked them, how they could be defeated, or failing that, casting the quickest spell of escape that would take him to a safe place as far away from here as possible. Needless to say, his minions were on their own.
The vampire that was trying to get the attention (fat chance) of the demon mage then threw a horrified look over his shoulder, when he heard the yells of alarm coming from the other monsters in their circle, who shrank away towards each other, leaving a sudden gap in the circle of unearthly fiends. A gap where the pair of shadow creatures were presently drifting forward, right at the cowering vampire pressing himself up against the magical ward.
The other vampires and demons in the circle now shrieked at the top of their lungs, at the exact moment Faith blinked in shock. With eye-blurring speed, the pair of shadows had…moved?…leapt?…shifted towards the center of the ring, and then back again equally swiftly, returning to their former place in the Shadow Court's circle around their prey. That specific word was the only way to describe the remaining demons, considering what had just happened to the cringing vampire. Before this blood-drinker with its superhuman reflexes could even move, it had been absorbed, drawn into, sucked up, fell into - eaten - by the shadows during the fraction of an instant these eerie creatures had been in contact with the vampire.
"Shit!" a shocked Faith blurted out, snapping her head over to see how Willow was taking this. The Slayer's mood wasn't improved by seeing this witch's mouth hanging open at what the redhead had just witnessed. Turning back her attention to the factory center, Faith watched with awe at what next transpired.
In streaks of black faster than even her own Slayer speed, the rest of the Shadow Court, save for one, now attacked. Half of the remaining demons instantly vanished from existence, absorbed into the darkness of the six wraiths, with the others then making a frantic break for survival from their circle, trying to escape past the shadows into the factory. However, none of the rest of the monsters got away any further than a few steps during their unsuccessful flight, with these demons also being collected and/or consumed.
A stunned Faith observing all this finally noticed something else, which brought to mind what had been told to the New Council members at their meeting with the Charmed sisters. Sure enough, one of the shadows hadn't moved at all, with the others of its kind doing all the work of overcoming the demons. When that event was at last finished, the six shadows then drifted towards the motionless shade, until they formed themselves into a line, with their unresponding comrade in the middle of the row, facing the last of their quarry.
Giving a terrified look at his uncanny adversaries, Ig'yrul the Sorcerer hurriedly began a dimensional teleportation spell, madly waving his arms until he was suddenly distracted.
"Oh, no, you don't!" was angrily hissed into Faith's ear, and as the surprised Slayer turned her head at that unexpected comment, she saw a now-tangible Willow having a furious look on her face, as the witch firmly pointed a very stern index finger at the demon mage about to escape. Whose attempted getaway was abruptly interrupted when that sorcerer's hands promptly burst into flames from an utterly unanticipated magical assault.
Howling in surprised agony, Ig'yrul frantically beat his fiery hands against the front of his robes, until the burning stopped. Whimpering while thrusting these injured parts of his body into his armpits, the demon then wildly looked around to see who'd just done that, only to stare right into the upper part of the shadow creature that a mere moment before had been in the middle of the line of its comrades. Freezing solid in sheer shock, an evil sorcerer from another dimension who'd come to this world to wreck havoc and devastation upon the innocent now had his eyes bulge in utter disbelief, as this mage watched the shadow creature just a foot away from the outer surface of his protective magical shields wards slowly lean forward, until absolute blackness touched the wards, which then at once vanished.
A fraction of a second later, so did Ig'yrul the Sorcerer.
"Goddamnit, Red!" snarled Faith, as she anxiously eyed the shadow that had handily disposed of the demon mage slowly drift back into the line of the other beings of pure darkness. "What the fuck was that for?"
An indignant Willow hissed back at a Slayer paying no attention at all to her, as Faith kept on looking away from the witch, "It had to be done! That was a really nasty piece of work, and it was about to take off. We'd have had to track it down later, and only the Goddess knows how much misery it could've caused until then!"
Her gaze still fixed upon a certain spot in the center of the factory, Faith said hollowly, "Yeah, well, good for you, 'cept we just got those shadow guys' attention now."
Snapping her head around, a startled Willow then watched the entire line of the Shadow Court hovering a few inches above the concrete floor also slowly but inexorably gliding right towards the pair of New Council representatives.