Chapter 7

As You Were

"Are you sure of what you saw?" Kendra asked, crossbow in hand as she and Lexie joined him on the balcony.

"Ken, I'm telling you I wasn't seeing things." he replied shakily.

"I know for a fact that, that's what Jesse saw." Lexie spoke up as she started to back away from them and go back into the house.

Following her line of vision they looked across the lake and saw ten bald headed demons, wearing brown ceremonial robes looking at them.

"Damn, get down!" Jesse said in a whispered yell.

As they dropped down to the ground, Lexie looked over at Jesse. "Do you think they saw us?"

In answer to her question the gang heard a soft thumping noise. Looking up in unison, they saw one of the demon men standing on the railing of the balcony, silently watching them with dark red eyes.

His face was nothing more then a demonic visage. Ghostly white flesh so devoid of pigment they could see the blue and purple veins beneath the surface. His eyes were an unearthly dark red /grey and white. He was also completely hairless-nothing on his face, no brows, no facial hair and his lips were a deep ruby red.

"What the..."

Not waiting for Jesse to finish his sentence, Kendra stood to her feet as the thing jumped onto the balcony with them. In a hard charge they collided and both of them went over the railing.

"Kendra!" Jesse shouted as more of them poured over the lip of the balcony. "Shit!" he said pulling out his colt and started shooting into the crowd. "Doc get to the bedroom and get the backpacks!"

As he said that Lexie ran towards the bedroom and just as she touched her gun one of the things jumped on her from behind. As the thing started to sprout pink tentacles out of it's face, Lexie cried thinking that this was the end.

That was until Jesse's shoe connected with the side of it's head. The demon went tumbling off, a snarl on it's lips. Quickly getting to her feet, she pulled up her weapon just as Jesse loaded bullets into his gun with a quick loader. Making sure Lexie was okay, he looked up to see that the thing was already struggling back to his feet. As more tentacles came out of it's face they let loose with a barrage of bullets that dropped the thing down like a ton of bricks. Green blood showering the wall behind it.

"Let's get the hell out of here." she said as they started to walk towards the door.

"We have to get, Kendra."

As he said that another creature suddenly appeared in the bedroom doorway. It was still bald like the others but it looked to be a female. Staggering into the room, Lexie struggled with her holster trying to free her hand gun. Suddenly, she felt something on her leg. Looking down it was the first one they had shot clutching at her ankle. It pulled itself closer, it's mouth open.

She tried to pull away, but fell onto the floor, crashing over a table and lamp. She then tried to crawl away, but the frail demon kept its hold and dragged along behind her, even as she cursed herself for not being able to free her pistol.

Jesse flung all his weight against the female demon and she flew against a wall, but bounced back immediately. With a snarl she attacked again. Bringing up his gun he fired a slug, the hot lead tearing through the woman's chest. To his dismay however it didn't stop her onslaught. Another shot ripped through her neck. Still she came.

From the floor Lexie managed to level off her pistol. She fired at the ghoulish head which drew closer to her leg. The thing's skull blew open and its grasp relaxed. Shaking violently, her arm and gun stayed in the air, still poised, as she fired again...and again...and again.

"Lexie! Lexie!" Jesse shouted finally getting her attention.

Breathing heavily she suddenly snapped out of it and accepted the hand that he was offering. Taking it she shook the demons hand off of her ankle and stood to her feet. Running out of the room, they saw that they would be routed if they went towards the back of the house, so they went towards the front and opened the door. Only for a Heckler & Koch Mark 23 pistol to be shoved into their face.

As the tall sandy blond haired man looked at him, he suddenly aimed his gun past them and shot the demon in the head that was quickly coming up behind them. Before Jesse could ask who he was, some army officers ran past him and into the house killing off all of the demons they came into contact with.

"I'm sorry to disturb you folks." the man said as a helicopter zoomed overhead. It's search light framing them in an almost heavenly glow. "But my name is, Captain Riley Finn. Do you mind if me and my men come in?"

"Thank you for letting me and my men in." Captain Finn said as his men swarmed through the house looking for any sign of trouble.

"Well it's not like we had much of a choice." Jesse replied.

"Touche'." Finn said with a smile as one of his men walked quickly up to him. "We heard gunshots and saw demons on the move so we decided to help."

"The house is clear, sir."

"Jesse." they heard Kendra say with a hint of pain in her voice as she walked into the room.

Turning Jesse saw that she had a little blood drooling out of her mouth and a few cuts and bruises, but other then that she was fine. Giving her a hug, she suddenly winced.

"Sorry."

"Oh dear, let me treat those wounds." Lexie said as she guided Kendra to the sofa and got a medkit.

"Are you a doctor?" Riley asked.

"Yeah... yeah I am." Lexie said as she went back to treating Kendra's wounds.

"If you don't mind could you treat some others?" Riley asked. "We picked up some civilians on our way to California."

"Yeah, bring them in."

"Who are you guys?" Jesse asked as he heard the whine of the helicopter die.

"As far as I know we're what's left of the U.S. army." Finn said as he shared a look with one of his men of whom went outside to get the others.

As they walked into the room, Riley was about to make introductions until Kendra recognized someone in the group.

"Don't I know you?" she asked as she walked up to a short man with red spiky hair.

Giving her a look, he remembered her from somewhere too. Then it hit him.

"Isn't your name, Kendra?" he asked. "I thought you died?"

"I got better."

"You died?" one of Finn's officers asked. "You better not be a demon."

"No, I'm de opposite of a demon. I'm the Slayer."

"The Slayer?" Finn asked as there was a murmuring throughout the room. "Is Buffy..."

"Everybody just calm down." a tall, slender woman from Finn's group said as she got inbetween them. "We'll start with introductions first and then you two can explain how you know each other." she said as she looked to Riley. "Then we can find out what happened to everybody."

With that said Riley reintroduced himself and then his officers, of whom were an elite demon hunting unit called Red Squad. The woman who had calmed everyone down was his wife Sgt. Samantha Finn. The man who had pulled his gun on them was Commander Graham Miller and the other two were his pilot ensign Michelle Hernandez and ensign Charles Donovan.

The handful of civilians were two teenaged girls named Caridad and Alexandria, a middle aged man named Tom Wellington, and the man that Kendra knew named Daniel "Oz" Osbourne.

After the introductions were given out, Oz explained that he had only met Kendra briefly when she had first came to Sunnydale. He had also told them that later on, through Willow he had found out that Kendra was killed by a vampiress named Drusilla.

In turn Kendra told them about her and Jesse's resurrection and then of the fate of Willow and Sunnydale itself.

"So Buffy is..."

"I'm sorry." Kendra told Riley. "From what Willow told us she fought until her last breath."

"So what do we do now?" Graham asked. "We were stuck in Brazil for over a year and our plan to get to Sunnydale and back up the Slayer is ruined."

"But we still have a Slayer." Samantha spoke up as she shared a look with Kendra. "I say we back her up and make our way to the CDC in Los Angeles."

"The CD..."

"When we reached the states we kept getting an automated audio transmission." Riley said cutting Kendra off. "We found out that there's only two CDC locations broadcasting, but the one in Atlanta stopped broadcasting some time ago, so we came here, since we were on our way to California anyway."

"You said that the transmission was automated though?" Jesse asked as he started to pace. At Riley's nod, he continued. "So what makes you think that those people are even still alive?"

"That's right." Lexie piped in. "The residents that used to live here went to the CDC and they never came back."

"Because they are the only hope that we have." Samantha replied for Riley as they shared a look. "The government in and of itself has fallen, radio intelligence with other countries have stopped and the President is dead. Even what few contacts we had in the government and in the Initiative are gone."

"The Initiative?" Jesse asked accusingly as he stood to his feet. "This mess is all of your fault."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Graham asked angrily. "We just saved your ass."

Calming down just a little, Jesse relayed the story Willow had told them about the Initiative and Adam to the group.

"No...no that can't be true." Riley said out loud. 'Maybe all of those rumors about population control by the government were true. But I doubt that this is what they had in mind.'

"Excuse me." the Dominican teen known as Caridad said as she approached the group after a moment of silence. "But we've been on the move for days and we barely had anything to eat and..."

"Oh God I didn't even think to ask you guys about that." Jesse said pointingly talking to the survivors and not to the soldiers. "We have plenty of stuff for you guys to eat in the kitchen. Help yourself. When you're done you can have a hot shower and we'll help you find a room to sleep in tonight."

"Real food and a hot shower?" Alexandria said to Caridad as Lexie led them and the other survivors into the kitchen. "I think we're in heaven."

"So does that invitation go for the rest of us?" Riley asked, looking pointingly to Kendra of whom seemed less hostile, and then to Jesse.

"I don't know. You're the one with the big guns so you tell me." Jesse said looking towards all of the soldiers.

"You know this is a pretty nice set up." Graham said looking around the house. "How'd you and your girlfriend come about claiming this place."

"Squatter's rights." Jesse said through gritted teeth. He was so hating this Graham guy all ready.

Seeing that a fight was coming Riley decided to intervene. "Look, we aren't the bad guys here. I admit that me and Graham were apart of the Initiative some time ago but after we found out what they were doing with Adam we left. And after what you told us he did, we're glad that we did."

"We're not going to do any of that Martial law crap and try to take over things." Samantha added. "We can be helpful and I think we proved that tonight. All we want is a place to hold up until we can get our bearings. We came a long way and as far as we know we might be the last dregs of humanity."

As she said that, Jesse studied each of their faces and he saw how young they were. They couldn't have been that much older then him and Ken and he couldn't imagine what they had been through in the last year that this had been going on. He could only imagine the people they had seen die or lost both in the army and their families. Maybe that's why that guy Graham was such an asshole. As Kendra gave his hand a gentle squeeze, his decision was made.

"Alright, you can stay." Jesse said as a breath of relief went through the house. "Just help us clear out all of these bodies and I'll show you guys where you can sleep tonight."

As soon as he said that Graham's stomach growled loudly, making everyone look over at him. Not knowing why but Jesse started to laugh at that and it was infectious because the whole group was laughing now. Even Kendra and Oz.

"Don't worry little guy." Jesse said as he fought off the laughter and looked at the slightly older man's stomach. "We'll feed you too."

A/N The backpacks Jesse was referring to were his idea. They have a med-kit in them, three days worth of food, a blunt weapon, a metal flint, a very small cache of ammo, and two bottles of water in them. It was in case the house ever got overrun and they needed to split really fast.