The Ravages Of Hell (23?)

"But we helped them!" Buffy protested as she climbed out from under her furs. "Why would they do that?"

"Because," Buffy saw the Immortal's lips move soundlessly as he counted to ten, a coping strategy that she'd seen both Giles and Angel use, "they're renowned as habitual thieves. Which you would have known if you'd either listened to me when I tried to warn you or Giles when he was trying to teach you about Norse mythology."

"Don't try and blame this on me!" Buffy flared.

"You're the pig-headed one who wouldn't listen!" the Immortal replied.

"Why is everything alwa-."

"They went this way!" Michelle interrupted.

"Well done," the Immortal nodded. "Let's catch them up and get our weapons back."

"Hey, don't walk away from me!" Buffy snapped as her boyfriend started off with the other two Slayers. "This isn't over!"

"Oh no," the Immortal sniffed. "Far be it for you to admit you were in the wrong."

A gloomy, glare-laden period followed as they trudged silently through the snow. Buffy's eyes shot daggers into the Italian playboy's back. How dare he question her? She saved the world! What right had he to question her? Suddenly Michelle spoke up. "There's a cave just ahead with a fire inside, the tracks lead up to it, if we surround it and wait for them to come out we could catch them unawares."

"An excellent idea," the Immortal commented. Buffy's eyes narrowed, now he thought he could take over her mission? "Everyone, move into position."

&&&

"Wow."

"That is-."

"Yeah."

"Holy shit!" Faith quickly wiped away a tear so none of the others could see the effect the marvel before them had on her. Tears were not cool for her image.

But then no-body would have held it against her. The city before them was encircled by a seemingly spotless white wall that gleamed in the mid-day sun. Its walls were filled with loopholes for the city's archers, and there was a rounded tower, their turrets pointing upwards, impaling the clear sky above, set every three hundred paces. Towards the back of the city there was a hill upon which stood a great castle constructed out of indomitable granite blocks, another wall around it. From the citadel's highest spire hung a huge banner of a knight galloping across a field, and from its other many other towers there flapped different banners that Faith guessed belonged to the multitude of knights and nobles who served Britain's greatest ever hero.

"That's Camelot," she finally breathed.

"Unless there's another really huge castle just around the next corner."

Faith chose to ignore Kennedy's sarcasm. "And we've got to ride into there. Into a massive army."

"Yep," Kennedy agreed.

"Tell your girl-friend I'm gonna kick her ass when I see her," Faith grunted.

"Ha!" Kennedy snorted. "Like you could!"

"True," she grudgingly nodded. "I'll have to make do with kicking yours then."

"Girl-friends?" Faith groaned as Kay started off again. Even tied and flung over the back of his horse he hadn't stopped with the threats and curses. If they hadn't needed him for the directions, Faith would have gagged him two days back. "You truly are godless harlots if you engage in such unnatural acts."

"Hey," Faith turned towards the knight. "Shut the hell up."

"Come on," Rona started forward. Faith shook her head and grinned, girl was the only person she knew more impatient than her.

The walk down the winding path leading to the city and its huge, shadow-casting walls was over far too quickly. Soon they were stood before an entrance barred with a gleaming, black-iron portcullis that Faith knew that not even a Slayer could break through or lift. Looking up, she saw a trio of vats sat on the walled walkway above the entrance, vats that could be filled with any number of disturbing ingredients designed to discourage unwanted visitors – boiling water or oil for just two. "Yo," she turned towards Kay. "You're up." The knight stayed stubbornly silent. Faith sighed. "Ya wanna get free or not?"

"Ahoy the guardhouse!" the knight roared. "'Tis Sir Kay! I bring the four intruders searched for by our king!"

"Funny," Faith heard and sniggered at Vi's mutter, "I thought we brought him. Must be male ego."

After a second the portcullis started to creak up, pulled up by a rope pulley system. Faith looked at the others before starting through the portal and into an oval-shaped tunnel lit by brush-torches set into the brick walls. The moment they stepped out into the sunlight they were surrounded by twenty of so halberd-wielding footmen dressed in chain-mail. "Take me to your leader." Faith hid her own tension behind a smirk as the others turned to her. "What? I always wanted to say that."

&&&

Angel spun out of the way of the first demon to charge him. His eyes widened when the demon's fist slammed into the wall behind, chipping brick but having no apparent effect on the demon. "Oh goody," he muttered as he leapt backwards, kicking off the wall before leaping-first into his opponent's vault-sized chest, "this is just going to be heaps of fun."

He winced as he thudded against his opponent then grunted when the creature grabbed him in a bone-splintering bear hug. "Shit!" he smashed his forehead into the demon's face. His opponent growled but didn't release the hold. Cursing, he butted the beast again. Again it growled but failed to release his grip. Shaking his head clear, he tried again.

This time the demon did loosen his grip. The moment Angel's feet hit the ground, he took a step back and kicked up, crashing his foot against the side of the monster's head. The demon stumbled backwards. Angel leapt into the air, cannoning a dropkick into the monster's face, knocking it into the wall behind with brick-cracking force.

Even as the demon fell to the ground another grabbed him by the shoulder. Angel responded with a side kick to the demon's stomach before twisting to face it, barely managing to glide under the creature's haymaker at his face in the process. The demon swung a follow-up left that Angel blocked on his shoulder, the pain blazing through his shoulder making him vamp out.

The monster recoiled in shock. "Seems like you're not the only monster around here!" Angel laughed before snatching hold of the demon's head and twisting, the air resonating to the snap of its neck.

"Ahh!" Angel staggered as an incredibly hard blow smashed into his back between his shoulderblades. Kicking out behind, he connected heel-first with somebody's face but at the same time another demon kicked him in his grounded leg, knocking him to his knees. He managed to block the first punch thrown, and even elbow his attacker in the stomach, but then he was battered by a barrage of blows, each one crashing into him until finally he slumped to the ground.

&&&

"I don't see why we can't go in?" Buffy said through gritted teeth as she peered at the cave they were hiding some eighty paces from. She shivered, god it was so cold.

"Because, as I've explained for the umpteenth time, they'll see us coming, we get them as they're coming out, they won't be prepared," her boyfriend snapped in much the same manner.

"Fine!" she snapped back before lapsing into a grumpy silence.

Finally the dwarves stumbled out of the camp, their clumsy gait suggesting they'd been drinking. The moment they were level with her position at the opening to the small valley leading up to the cave, Buffy bounded to her feet. "Get them!"

Blood pounding, she charged down the slight incline. She hit the first dwarf full on, shoulder to shoulder, the force of the collision sending the dwarf crashing into a near-by tree and sliding to the ground. A second dwarf's mouth opened in shock a half-second before she filled it with her foot. A third charged her, axe lifted over his head, but she easily grabbed the axe shaft and reversed the swing, crashing the handle into the dwarf, dropping him like a stone. Sensing a fourth attempting to sneak up behind her, she shot out a heel, catching the dwarf on the tip of his chin, catapulting him into the air.

Looking around, she saw that the other Slayers had dealt with the rest of the dwarves and were already rummaging through the dwarves' belongings, seeking their weapons. "That'll teach em!" she exulted.

"I doubt it," the Immortal sniffed. "They're compulsive thieves. Now we've taken this little detour can we please continue?"

&&&

"What is this threat that worries Merlin so?" Arthur asked the unfortunately empty council room, his knights only just returning from travelling his lands, searching without success for the threat. And yet, if Merlin said it existed, it must. Arthur looked up from his brooding as one of his page boys crashed through the ornately-carved oaken double doors, eyes wide with excitement. "Sir Kay has returned with four fair maidens he claims are the threat!"

"Kay?" Arthur rose from his chair, hand reaching for his sword. "Have him and these wenches brought her-."

"Who ya calling wenches?" Arthur looked towards the entrance, eyes widening at the hubbub there. A quartet of devilishly attractive women clad in men's clothes of some foreign land or other had walked in, surrounded by a considerable number of his footmen. "Hey," the group's evident leader stepped forward, an amused yet slightly awed gleam in her luminous eyes, "this is the Round Table room. Gotta say, love what ya did with the place."

Arthur's eyes widened still further as he realised that these WOMEN who were strangers to boot were armed while standing in the middle of his council room. "Take their weapons!"

"Not a good idea." He gasped as one of the men stepped forward only to be put down by a firm kick to the crotch, his companion who lunged for the brunette a second later going down to an elbow to the head. "Look," the brown-haired beauty ducked a third's halberd-led lunge before snatching his weapon off him, "we don't wanna fight, we want your help!"

"Help to bring down King Arthur's reign!" shouted Kay.

"Jeez," the brunette shook her head. "Beat a guy's ass once and he holds a grudge forever."

"To be fair," commented the Saracen amongst the quartet's number, "it was less than a week ago."

"Oh great," the other brunette groaned as Arthur's gallant knights charged in, "well done, Faith. Ever thought of working for the UN on the middle east crisis?"

"I'm too busy practicing being bad-ass hot to waste my time, Ken," the beauty replied before spinning around to face him as he attempted to approach the surrounded quartet. "Listen Arth," he blinked at the shortening of your name, "I respect you and all, but you try anything and I will shove your sword right up your English Channel."

"Good gracious, you have quite a way with words."

"Ah," Arthur smiled as his mage entered the chaotic council room. Surely he would be able to make some sense out of the chaos. "Merlin-."

"It's not possible!" The feared wizard stared at each of the four girls in turn. "Slayers, but how!"

"Hoo-fucking-ray," the taller of the two brunettes spoke up, her strange accent barely intelligible, "that's what we've been trying to tell you dumbasses since we met Kay," the curvy beauty shot Arthur's friend a disgusted look, "we're the good guys."

&&&

"Ah," Angel groaned as he opened his eyes. Head thudding, he rolled up into a sat position and groaned as he looked around his dank surroundings. Another cell, from Liam's drunken nights that invariably ended in the watchman's dungeons to Holtz's vengeance-filled cells, to now, it seemed he never managed to escape prisons.

"You're awake!"

"Just about," he grunted at his son's cheerful shout. "But don't bellow, I feel like I've been on a three day drunk, and trust me I know how they feel." He grimaced. "Not to ask a stupid question but where are we?"

"According to those people," Connor pointed to a trio sat towards the back of the cell, in its shadows, "Atlantis is run by the minority demon population, they're resistance fighters brought here like us. Brought here to fight in their arena."

"Their ar-," Angel groaned as he heard the sound of booted footsteps. Many pairs of booted footsteps. "Oh this day couldn't get any better," he groused as he rose. Seeing the others, he shook his head. "I'll deal with this. And if anything happens, I'll be back for you all."

By the time he reached the prison's steel bars, a dozen of the demons had come to the gates. "Hey," he smiled at the guards, "did you not get our reservation for the Hilton?"

"You come with us!" bellowed the lead demon. "You are to fight in the arena!"

"Ah," Angel sighed. "Obviously not."