A/N: Wow it's been a really long time. No defense or anything this time. I slacked off and I hope this awesome short-ish chapter keeps those still reading this story interested. Thank you for all the reviews, story followers, and story favorites. It's those reminders that would randomly pop up on my email that would push me to work on this a little bit at a time. I don't think I could explain or say how much all of that means to me. I hope you enjoy and please leave some reviews.
Disclaimer: See first chapter.
Ch. 15 Life
"You have some power witch." The blonde hell god said as he threw a punch at the barrier before him. "But I'm stronger." He pounded again and smirked when he noticed a crack on the barrier.
Willow listened to her girlfriend's voice over her ear peace noting that they had gotten Faith and Buffy out of the nearby safe house and to the other location. She along with Giles began to pull back slowly. They didn't have much time before the hell god would break the barrier especially since they were pulling away.
"You better pray that you can run and hide before I get out." The hell god said becoming more flustered as he kept pounding on the barrier he was sure he could tear down any second.
Giles and Willow began to quickly exit the room and Kennedy who engulfed Willow in a hug greeted them. "You okay?" she asked looking over the redhead making sure her girlfriend was all right.
Willow nodded "Yeah I'm just kind of tired . . . " The witch finally let her self go and fall to the tiredness her body had been feeling for a while now. She collapsed in the safe arms of her girlfriend and hoped she had done enough to keep everyone safe.
Giles assured Kennedy that willow was just sleeping from the exhaustion. They quickly made their way into the SUV and drove off. They had placed slayers around the perimeter to keep track of the hell god. They would know the moment the blonde creature broke out of his prison.
"Ken?" Willow whispered as she got her bearings. "Giles?" The witch sat up from where she seemed to be laying. She looked around and didn't recognize her surroundings. She was inside somewhere and a bright light shinning through a window. She seemed to have been lying on a soft bed.
Willow stood up and walked towards the window. She could see beautiful scenery before her. One single tree at the distance of the open field drew her attention.
"We've been waiting for you dear." A voice startled the redhead
The witch turned around to face the owner of the voice. An elder woman with graying hair in a white robe holding onto a staff stood before her.
"Come sit with me and let me tell you a story."
Willow nervously smiled "Where are we?"
The older woman smiled sweetly "We are no where and everywhere. We are here and there. The where is not important let me show you something. We don't have much time."
Willow followed the woman to the bed and sat next to her. "Your power is the only ting that will stop it"
Buffy was pacing the living room of their new safe house. They had sped off into the middle of nowhere and now they were in a relative small house with a dozen or so slayers around them. She wanted to have some time alone with Faith away from all these panicked filled girls.
"Faith can I talk to you alone?" Buffy motioned to a door that she hoped led to a room away from all the other slayers.A few of the girls noticed and where going to protest but the look Buffy and Faith gave them made them stop.
Faith wrapped her arms around Buffy fully knowing her counterpart was close to breaking down. They didn't know if the others had gotten away okay. They had been waiting for some sort of contact but nothing had gotten through.
"Oh god I don't even know if Dawn got away!" Buffy said letting go of Faith and walking towards the door.
"B, I'm sure she got out fine, there is no way Giles or Willow would have let her stay there or near that thing. You gotta calm down a little okay?" Faith approached the blonde and Buffy just stood there. Faith's mind was racing but she was fighting to stay as calm as possible for Buffy's sake.
"How are you holding up?" The blonde asked sensing the panic building up inside Faith.
The dark-haired slayer shrugged. "I dunno, I guess given the situation I'm okay." Buffy approached her and slid her hand in Faith's
"I don't believe that for a second but thank you for staying so calm while I freaked out."
"Any time B. So what are we supposed to do now? Should we back out there and wait while we hear from the others?"
Buffy shook her head "I don't know. This doesn't feel right at all."
A knock at the door paused their conversation. "Come in." Faith yelled and seconds later two girls came in with a phone.
"It's Mr. Giles he wants to speak with Miss. Summers."
"Giles is everyone okay?" Buffy didn't even let her watcher say anything before she asked.
"We are all fine. Willow fainted due to her exhaustion but we are making our way to our own location while we track the hell god and figure out our next move." Giles sighted
"And Dawn? Is she okay?"
"She was the first to be evacuated she is holding position along with a substantial amount of slayers with her while we make sure the hell god doesn't follow any of our vehicles. As soon as that happens, we will all meet up at your safe house. Now I must go but please stay put and we will be there as soon as we can." The watcher didn't wait for any of the protest Buffy was about to voice and hung up the phone.
Buffy informed Faith of what was going on and the two agreed to wait there for the rest of the gang. Once they were left alone in the room at Faith's suggestion, decided to practice some Tai -Chi to try and calm their slayer senses.
Buffy was a bit less familiar with the art, yet Faith seemed to have the natural talent.
"How did you get so good at this?" The blonde asked.
Faith finished her form and smiled "Well you know being stuck in prison, I had to find a way of not beating up all the inmates that rubbed me the wrong way. Angel used to visit and teach me when he had the chance, then I picked up books from the library as well." Faith stood behind Buffy and placed her arm onto of the blonde and guided it in a smooth motion.
"Well isn't this the perfect time to be all over each other."
Both of the slayers stopped what they where doing and stared at Spike.
"Spike? What the hell are you doing here?" Faith asked walking up the vampire fist ready to go.
"Listen slayer, I'm here without permission to try and save your ass so don't even start. I'm still sore from last time."
Buffy stepped in "What's going on and how the hell is he sore if he's a ghost?"
Faith shoved her hands in her pockets and shrugged. "Well when I went off to the motel this guy followed me and I punched him."
"Wait you were able to touch him?" Buffy asked bringing her hand up to Spike's shoulder her hand quickly going through the vampire.
"She didn't just touch me, that bitch almost broke my nose. I'm just glad being in this state doesn't really show the damage."
"You deserved it." Faith said bringing her fist backs out.
"Are you guys twelve? Can we stop with the schoolyard bickering and get to the important things. We obviously know that Spike is really him so lets hear what he has to say . . . ." the blonde looked towards Spike who looked like he was about to direct something at Faith. "Don't even Spike. It's been a stressful day; what do you have for us?"
The blonde vampire adjusted his coat and almost pouted "Well I don't know much but I know that you.." he pointed at Faith "are the real key."
"Yeah we know that what else ya got?" Faith asked annoyed.
"I also know that Angel is not who is supposed to have the hell god. I don't know much but I know that, and somehow it's gonna end up screwing you in the end. I just thought you . . . Argh!" Spike dropped to the floor and held his head in his hand. "Bloody Hell, worse than having that bloody chip in my head." Faith reluctantly moved to try and help him and to all of their surprise was able to physically touch the vampire. She helped him up onto the bed. However when Buffy went to help her hands went right through him.
Spike's face began to morph into his vamp face and back still screaming in pain. He held onto Faith's hands and a light began to shine from their connected hand.
Buffy just looked at what was happening. Seconds later Spike was launched in one direction and Faith was launched in the opposite side both crashing with a loud thud.
Sarah and April came rushing in and Buffy ran to help Faith out.
"What the hell?" Faith said as Buffy helped her back to her feet.
"Um . . . Buffy, could you please tell these lovely ladies to put those pointy wooden stakes away. They are useless anyways."
Buffy and Faith looked up to see the other two slayers pointing their stakes at spike ready to attack. Then they saw why the younger women had reacted so quickly. Spike was in his vamp form.
"Don't Move!" April quickly demanded ready to strike. "Miss Summers, how did this thing get in here?"
"Hey listen here kid, I'm not a thing." He took a step forward and both of the slayers launched an attack. It was a shock for Spike when he felt the two girls tackle him to the ground and two stakes near his chest. The blonde vampire quickly pushed them off of him and kicked the stakes out of their hands. "Buggers almost dusted me."
"Enough!" Buffy yelled. "Sarah and April get out now." The two girls followed the orders and excited the room pissed off.
Buffy then approached Spike and threw a small punch towards Spike successfully making contact.
"I don't know what just happened but I think I just brought you back to life." Faith stated looking at her hand wondering how in the hell she'd been able to do that.
"Target is moving in on your position. Repeat team 4 target is moving in on your position."
The young slayer looked terrified. Her face reflected the fear the other four girls around her were feeling when they all heard that the hell god. The one thing Buffy Summers her self had died trying to defeat was approaching them. Team four had been compromised of mostly newer slayers. Their task was one of the 'as safe as you can get' part of the plan. All the five girls had to do was set cameras around a certain perimeter to keep track of the enemy after it go out. However somehow they were now in the most dangerous position yet. They were in sights of one pissed off blonde hell god.
"Jennifer, get the hell out of there now." Kennedy's voice sounded urgent as it came through to the leader's ear peace. The blonde slayer looked around and then down at her GPS tracker and saw the fast approaching enemy.
"God damn it, Jennifer get the Fuck out of there now."
The other four girls scrambled about and started to panic. Jennifer calmly took her ear peace off and cleared her throat. "Run, get to the safe house with Ken. I'll catch up."
One of the other slayers spoke up in a rushed voice "Are you crazy? Come with us that thing will kill you."
"I can't. You guys need some time to get out of here. I'm going to give you that time. Now go."
The young slayer began to run in the direction of the hell god.
"You look familiar? Hey wouldn't you happen to know where a magical key is at would you?" The short hell god questioned as he stepped face to face with Jennifer. The girl just shook her head as she tried to swallow the immediate need to flee for her life.
"Okay so where is that bitchy blonde slayer?"
"I'm blonde and bitchy, what do you want?" Jennifer snorted and smirked accepting the fact that she was going to die and she was sure as hell going to have fun doing it.
Willow awoke panicked shooting straight up from the bed she had been laying in.
"Hey, hey, it's okay baby you're okay." Kennedy rushed to calm the redhead.
Willow looked around and breathed in deeply a couple of times. "Did we make it?"
Kennedy nodded "Yeah, for the most part. But don't worry just rest up so we can go meet up with the rest of the gang."
Willow shook her head "We can go now."
Kennedy was about to protest but Willow sat up and gave her the determined witch stare.
The slayer helped Willow off the bed and began to walk out into a living room area where Giles was reading through a few books marking down some notes on several legal pads. The librarian took a few seconds to notice the two girls who walked in.
"Willow you should go back to bed." The librarian quickly made his way towards the redhead and began to walk her back towards the room but the witch refused.
"No. I'm fine. Can I we just go meet up with Buffy and the rest of the group?" Her voice sounded urgent.
"Is something wrong?" Giles asked
"Giles, the hell god is loose and we are all separated of course there is something wrong." Willow stated
Giles softly smiled "Yes well it would appear so wouldn't it? But I must insist that you rest. You used up so much earlier and we can't risk you collapsing. Plus it's still dark. Once the sun begins to rise we can head out. First thing yes?"
Willow bit her lip. She really really needed to talk to Buffy. While she had collapsed she had seen some interesting visions and she wanted to find out if they were true. However she didn't want to discuss it with anyone else before then. The witch nodded "Fine but as soon as I see some light outside we are heading out."
"What the hell" Spike yelled as he rose up from the bed he was in and almost bumped into two very confused and worried slayers. Well maybe one and half slayers since Faith was more confused and pissed off than worried.
"Spike calm down. You're okay." Buffy tried to use her soothing voice to try to appease the panicked vampire.
The blonde vampire sat up and began to touch his face and chest he stood up abruptly and stretched his hand out to touch Buffy's face.
"I'm back?!" he said surprised and excited. So excited he placed both of his hands around Buffy's face and pulled her in for a kiss.
The blonde immediately pushed the clearly insane vampire away
"Damn I missed that!" He yelled then seconds later was thrown to the floor. "You piece of shit!" Faith yelled
The raven-haired slayer straddled the poor vampire and began to descend a set of blows.
"Faith! Stop!" Buffy yelled trying to get her girlfriend off the vampire. They were both upset by Spike's actions but killing the vampire would solve nothing. The blonde finally pulled Faith off of Spike and glared down at Spike. She dragged Faith out of the room before she closed the door she looked at Spike "Don't move from here. I'll deal with you later."
Faith's chest was pounding and she was breathing heavily. How dare that motherfucker kiss her girl? She punched the wall causing all the girls in the room to rise in arms. Buffy signaled the girls to clear out and they all did so leaving the chosen two in the open room.
"Are you done?" Buffy asked placing her hand on her hip.
Faith wanted to maintain her frown and pissed off face but was made very difficult by one adorable looking slayer. "No. I gotta go dust that asshole then I'll be done."
Buffy took a step close to the other slayer she entangled her arms with her. "You know you can't do that. Now stop pouting and kiss me."
The raven-haired woman chuckled and leaned in mere inches from Buffy's lips "You have vampire breath."
Buffy frowned and swiftly sat her arms around Faith's neck "Exactly, now I need a little Faith to take that away." She pulled the younger woman into a kiss that Faith was powerless to stop. After all, the rogue slayer always wanted to kiss her.
When they pulled apart Buffy smirked "Now I have Faith breath, much better."
"Buffy I swear if he even looks at you funny I'm going to dust his ass."
The blonde leaned in again an gave her a quick kiss "It's kinda hot when you get all jealous and stuff."
Faith rolled her eyes "Well don't get used to it. I don't need to go on a killing spree . . ." Faith's smile faded as she remember something dark. Buffy quickly sensed the change of mood in the other slayer and leaned in and softly to kissed the younger slayer.
"You wont. Now can we go in there and find out what the hell just happened? . . . Like civilized people?" Buffy stared into chocolate brown eyes and once she saw a nod she led them back into the room.
"I owe you some pain cupcake," Spike said as he walked up to Faith only stopping his approach when he saw Buffy get in front of his target.
"Yeah and I owe you some stakes Blondie." Faith spat out.
"Oh My god I swear I'd rather deal with a hell god than you two. Now would you both just chill out and help me figure out what happened?" Buffy said exasperated by the severely immature vampire and slayer.
"She started it" Spike mumbled.
"The hell I did. You are the one that kissed my girlfriend." Faith took a few steps closer towards the blonde showing Spike that Buffy was not for him to take.
"All right. Now Spike do you have any idea of how this could have happened? Did the powers tell you anything?"
The blonde vampire took a seat on the bed and cautiously stared at Faith then back at Buffy.
"I don't bloody know. The powers or what ever the hell they are, made me their pet. Anytime I tried to do something of my own free will, " He pointed at his head ". . . pain would be used. It's like that chip but worse."
Buffy processed the information "So now they let you go?"
"I doubt it. I think this one here was able to pull me out of whatever they had me in."
Faith also processed the information "Wait so your saying I can just grab ghosts and bring them back to life?"
"No pet, I don't think it's that simple." Spike stood up. "I bet the witch knows what's going on. Where is she?" The vampire walked out into the living room looking around for the familiar red head.
"She won't be here for another few hours. Plus she doesn't know that Faith is the key, they all think I am and it's best if we keep it that way."
"Are you insane? He's gonna come after you. No offense pet" he looked at Faith ". . . but I'd much rather that hell wanker take you than Buffy." The honest statement earned him a slap from Buffy.
"Then get the hell out of here." Buffy looked straight into the vampire's eyes. She could handle Faith and Spike's schoolyard bickering and jealousy but she couldn't stand the fact the Spike would even think to put Faith in danger. "The fate of the world depends on weather or not we can keep that thing from finding and using Faith. If you don't think that's worth fighting for then get out." Buffy stepped closer to Faith.
The vampire rubbed his hand against his cheek. The slayer had definitely made it clear that somehow the other slayer was very important to her. He hated it. He was still so in love with Buffy but he decided to set that aside. Even though he could feel the sadness that wanted to envelope him, he couldn't stand to see his slayer suffer and loosing Faith would truly hurt her.
"Fine I'm in. What can I do to help?"
Buffy exhaled letting out some of her frustration, "well while we wait for Willow we can share notes on everything we know. We are the only ones that know who the key really is."
The three walked back into the room and began to sort through all the information they all had.
The black SUV pulled up to a house in the outskirts of the city. Willow didn't wait for the vehicle to stop moving before she hopped off. She walked to the front door knocked. Seconds later one of the girls opened the door and greeted her. She smiled and looked around for her best friend.
"Buffy" She called out and sure enough the blonde came out of the room followed by Faith.
"Willow I'm glad you're okay." Buffy engulfed her friend in a hug. Even though she knew that her best friend had gotten away fine, she was relieved to see her and be to physically hug her.
Willow smiled, as she pulled back from the hug "You know mel not too good with dying. Anyways I'm guessing dawn and the other's are still on their way?"
Buffy nodded. She couldn't wait to see her sister to finally calm the worry that she had been carrying through the whole night.
"Yeah they probably slept in." Faith chimed in and walked up to Willow and patted her shoulder. "Glad to see you are okay Red."
Kennedy walked into the house carrying five very heavy looking bags followed by Giles carrying several books.
"Hey glad to see everyone is okay. Care to help me out with these?" Kennedy said looking at Faith.
Faith nodded and helped her friend out. They made their way into another of the rooms to set up the equipment they were carrying.
"Can we talk?" Willow asked as she walked towards the room the two slayers had come out from.
Buffy nervously followed her friend. Spike was in there and she hadn't decided how to tell everyone. The blonde tried to cut Willow off but the witch had already made her way into the room.
"Okay Will, there is something you should know."
The redhead looked towards the other person in the room.
Buffy stood in front of Willow and smiled sheepishly "So somehow Spike is back."
Willow looked towards the vampire who stood awkwardly and then Buffy who was awaiting a response from her.
"Okay things make more sense now. We really need to talk."
A/N: So what do you guys think? I know it's kind of short but a lot of important things are happening here. Please review and let me know what you guys think and any suggestions are welcome even though I have this mapped out, I like to toss around ideas. Keep with this story I won't abandon it even if it takes me a little while to update. Have I asked for reviews already? I ran out of patches again so yeah I'm still addicted.