Thanks for the reviews, and big, big thanks to Melowa for checking this over for me :)
[Act Four]
True night had fallen now, making it even harder to fight on the steep slope between the trees. Kennedy's feet kept catching on damp weeds or slipping on the slick mud and it was impossible to know what was going on anywhere except right in front of her. The angry shouts from Faith and occasional grunt from Oz only made everything that much more confusing.
Even what was right in front of her was hard to follow in the darkness. There was one demon, then two, then three, and then one or more would peel off to join the demons around Faith, or those around Oz. As soon as Kennedy felt she was starting to get the upper hand against her single combatant, back some more would run, long claws waving around in front of them and thick tails swishing back and forth just above the ground, making the already precarious footing even more unsafe.
"Who else thinks this would be more fun with weapons?" she called out as she almost tripped again.
She wasn't so much trying to make conversation, as trying to make sure the other two were still capable of talking. That said, she really would be enjoying this more with something sharp or pointy in her hand, or both… sharp and pointy was good too. All she had was her hands, that were neither sharp nor particularly pointy, and although her reach was longer than their's she certainly didn't have the crazy, sharp talons the demons did.
"Got a weapon," Faith grunted from somewhere behind her. "Broken beer bottle."
"I have a branch," Oz said, following it immediately with the sound of said branch smacking a scaly head.
"So I'm the only one without a weapon?" she griped.
She didn't dare poke her hand into the case of broken beers in case she sliced it off on a shard of glass instead, not that she could see the case, and she didn't have time to grope on the ground for a tree branch – if she was lucky enough to fall over one, then great but otherwise she had no choice but to attack the demons empty handed.
As that realisation sank in, she did so with gusto. Leading with a right hook that was only marginally less powerful than Buffy's, thanks to all the extra training she was putting in – if you allowed for pretty big margins anyway – she caught the closest demon on the end of its broad nose. It's head went back and she brought her left foot up squarely into the base of its throat. The demon fell back with a squeal and Kennedy grinned at her victory, however minor, before the alcohol in her system reasserted it's influence…losing her balance, she fell backwards too.
Faith pulled her broken bottle back from missing its mark again and ducked a left – paw? Whatever lizard hands were called – full of sharp claws. She remained crouched down when she saw Kennedy taking a tumble, waiting to see if she had to leap that way to save her, but the kid-Slayer scrambled back up by herself, cursing as blue as Faith at the mud, the hill and the sneak attack.
So, she leapt upwards instead on her powerful if shaky-right-now legs and double-kicked the demon about to loom over her. Once in the chest and again in the jaw. It staggered one way and as she landed, Faith staggered the other way, catching a gnarly tree root in her left hand she used it to propel herself forwards, upwards, and the jagged end of the bottle in her right pierced the hard scales of the demon flesh just enough to make it scream and flail its stupid, short arms in the air.
"Hey, guys," she called out excitedly, giving the bottle a good, vicious twist in the Meth-head's chest. "Think the game changed at some point. Bastards can be hurt now!"
A thick tail whipped out of the darkness, catching her hip and sending her flying even further down the slope into the open but unwelcoming branches of a pine tree. Her weapon, stuck firm in the demon's chest, did not fly with her.
"'Course," she added groggily as she slid painfully down the trunk. "So can we."
Oz spun as he watched her fly past, jumping over his own tail – well, not his own tail – trying with every ounce of balance he usually had to keep his feet, as he landed on the slippery slope again. He wasn't a trained fighter like the other two. Even in his tenure as a 'Scooby' he had never done more much more than take easily available and opportunistic shots at the bad guys, as a human anyway, but years of healthy living in Tibet and other communes around the world had him at the peak of health – alcohol rushing through his veins discounted – and the wolf kept him fast and agile.
So, he might not be able to land a punch that would make these guys blink, but he could jump, duck, swerve and bring that solid tree branch down in places he hoped were tender and then be back out of range again before those thin but lethal looking claws disembowelled him.
In a move that felt ninja-ish, his sensitive nose got wind of the reptile stink of a demon lunging at him from behind his left shoulder, reflexively he twirled the branch in his hands underarm and jabbed it behind him. He felt the way it caught the lizard in it's stomach, stopping it, and used its momentary surprise to spin around like a pro-batter, rising from a semi-crouch to swing at the lizard's, now even more surprised, head. It was a good, solid hit and the demon went down sideways. Even better, it stayed down.
Oz nodded at the lump of green scales he had just knocked out cold and felt the urge to grin cockily. It passed when the next demon came for him, stubby arms out in front of it like a rubber monster from a B-movie, claws poised to rend flesh, like something out of a very real nightmare.
It really passed when he tried to repeat his earlier move and swung hard at the demon's head, only to hear two sickening cracks instead of one. The first was the demon's skull – that one worked out okay – the lizard staggered around before collapsing and beginning to roll slowly down the hill. The second crack wasn't so okay and Oz looked in mild alarm at what remained of his sturdy branch – about four inches. The rest had shattered on impact.
"Okay." Another demon was slowly advancing on him through the trees and he had no choice but to back carefully down the slope away from them. "Anyone have a plan yet?"
"Try not to die!" Kennedy called out sarcastically, still engaged in her own fist to scaly claws fight a little higher up.
"Anything more specific?" he wondered, still back-stepping down, eyes scanning the muddy ground for any more handy, two foot long, branches.
"Yeah," Faith shouted from right behind him. "Duck!"
He did better than that, landing flat out on the ground thanks to her helpful shove. He narrowly managed to stop his face from hitting it too and looked up to see the damaged, dripping case of beer soar through the air above him to hit his demonic pursuer on top of its wide snout. The bottles not already smashed now did so, raining glass and Coors into the lizard's eyes. Blinded, it gave a hair-raising screech and trying to claw the sudden sharp, stinging pain away and taking some of its eyes with it.
It didn't go down, but it ran away, still screeching and hitting the occasional tree due to its lack of vision. Oz watched until the figure was lost in the darkness and then pushed himself to his hands and knees, thick mud squidging between his fingers and coating the front of his clothes.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Faith was already back in her own battle.
By the time he was back on his feet another demon – bigger and meaner than the last – was coming for him.
"Uh, Faith, any more cases of beer up your sleeve?"
They were thirty yards from the woodshed and by some miracle they hadn't been spotted yet. The fact that the day had gone from dusk to dark while they had been hiding behind the garage helped. So did the fact that the fight Faith, Rona and the new girl were in, with now three lizard foes, was so loud and intense that Buffy could barely hear Willow's panting right by her ear.
They were twenty yards away when Buffy saw a fourth demon leap down from the garage roof to join their particular fray. How the hell had it got up there? She didn't have time to call out the question and she only just managed to stop herself from crying out a warning too.
Instead she bit her tongue and ducked out from under Willow's arm, pushing her firmly towards Xander.
"What…?" he began.
"Go, get to the woodshed," she was keeping her voice down but her urgency was more than clear. "I just gotta…"
She faintly heard Willow cry out, "No…catastrophic…" but she was already moving away from them and Xander hadn't slowed down a bit.
As luck would have it, and hers usually didn't run this way, Faith whirled around swinging at the demon behind her with her sword just as Buffy leapt out of the concealing darkness. She landed on the back of the ambushing demon only seconds after its feet touched the grass. She broke its neck with one sharp twist and as she fell with it, rolled herself fluidly back into the darker shadows between the out-buildings. Crouched there, she surveyed the continuing fight, ready to spring into action again. She was weapon-less, though, and she would never have gotten the jump on that thing – no pun intended – if she hadn't had the element of surprise. She had made the fight a little fairer but there was nothing else she could do.
Half turning away already, she twisted back in surprise as something broke free of the battle and staggered fast towards her. Scratch that, someone. Faith had taken a hard hit and was stumbling backwards, back of one arm held over her nose, obviously in pain, the other pin wheeling with the sword in her hand, trying desperately to keep her footing.
She failed.
Buffy was prepared to take some of the blame for that, seeing as Faith tripped right over her still-crouching form hidden in the darkness. She sprawled over on her back, nearly knocking herself out with the hilt of her own sword. Looking stunned to begin with, when Buffy leaned over her automatically, pulling her arm away to assess the damage to her nose, she looked way more stunned.
"B?" she breathed her name like she was having some kind of celestial vision.
Buffy froze with guilt for a second and then decided to go with exactly that. "Uh huh, but best if you think of me like some... tweetie birds."
"Uh…" Faith frowned, looking more like her old self – or current self as may be. "…What?"
"Tweet tweet…tweet tweet…" she flapped her hands like little wings over Faith's head for a moment and then used her sleeve to wipe the little trail of blood coming from her nose. "Come on, you're fine, you have to get up."
Faith did sit up, but only because Buffy was dragging her in that direction. She seemed much more content to lay there and stare at her in shock and awe than jump back into the melee. The scent of hard liquor was pouring from her mouth with every breath; it was so strong it might even have been seeping from her pores, making it hard to tell if this dopey reaction was down to being wasted, or the blow she had taken to the face.
"Where did you go?"
"Nowhere. I've always been here."
That was true but also had the added benefit of sounding suitably otherworldly, in case there was more chance that Faith would buy in to her being an angel than she had her tweetie bird impression.
"You've been gone for fuckin' ever!" And then Faith started crying.
Buffy sat back on her heels, pulling her to her chest quickly in acute surprise. Faith was still smiling but those were definitely big, fat tears pouring down her cheeks and her voice hitched as she continued.
"I been waiting…always waiting…but you were just…gone, B. You were just…gone."
"I know. I didn't mean to be."
"S'okay, you're back now, right?"
As Faith went to give her a sloppy hug, Buffy spotted one of the overgrown reptiles breaking out of the clash towards them. Instead of accepting the embrace she snatched Faith's sword from her hand.
"Just need to borrow this."
"Hey, that's mine. Get one of your own!"
The blade was sharp and one angry swing was all it took to send a lizard head bouncing awkwardly across the grass. These things were a lot easier to take down that they had been the last time Buffy had encountered them, making her doubt Willow's theory that their power had increased in the past year.
She was back by Faith's side before the other slayer had fully finished her complaint. She handed the sword back and then yanked Faith to her unsteady feet.
"Do I have any of my own here?"
Faith blinked at her. "What?"
"Weapons? Are they still in my room? Did you leave our rooms the same?"
Faith looked ashamed, her hand flexed convulsively around the hilt of her sword and Buffy was amazed to see her start crying again.
"We did… We did! But it's been a year, B! And once the Wilferoo opened up in the girl's dorm and…and the boy's got ripped apart by the Saquatchii we needed the space, yunno? And somewhere we could, I dunno, batten down the hatches together or whatever."
Buffy had never heard of the Saquatchii and she had no clue in the world what a Wilferoo might be. In fact, if Faith hadn't been crying and wobbling about in the middle of a massive battle for their home, she would have thought the girl was messing with her. That really didn't seem to be the case though, so she did her best to listen above the sounds of the fight, aware she really shouldn't be talking to Faith at all – tweetie birds didn't ask about weapons… angels might though, she reasoned – and tried not to sound too offended when she asked:
"So, our stuff. You what? Just threw it all out when it got in the way?"
Faith laughed through her sniffles. It was weird and unsettling seeing Faith cry; it sent cold shivers up and down her spine and made her want to weep too.
"Nah, babe, we kept all of it. S'in boxes in the basement."
"All of it?"
"Yeah, even…even Kennedy's stuff."
"Okay, thank you." Buffy squeezed the arm she was still gripping. "Seriously, thank you. I have to go."
"Go? What the hell, B? You only just got here!"
"I know, but…"
"No buts…you can't just go again!"
"I don't want to, I have to." She started backing away. "And you have to fight! The girls, your girls, are getting beat out there, Faith. They can't win this without you."
"Not gonna win it with me either. Might as well just come with you now."
"No! You have to fight. If you want to see me again you have to stay alive and save the camp. You have to prove we can do it."
"What's the point?" Faith looked like she was about to throw her sword to the ground in defeat. "If you're not even gonna stick around?"
Buffy rushed back to her, cupping the sides of her head in both hands as she pulled her into a fast, fiery kiss. She stroked her thumbs gently over Faith's cheeks as she pulled back, wiping away the trails of tears. The tender gesture was at complete odds to the fierce brawl happening just couple of dozen yards away.
"There's one point."
Faith went from looking stunned to breaking into a sudden relaxed grin. "Been waitin' over a year for you to do that."
Buffy smirked as she started backing away again. "I know. Sorry about that."
"You'll come back?"
"Hopefully a lot sooner than you think."
"Cool. B, before you go…"
Buffy paused level with the woodshed, waiting to see what Faith had to say before she dashed around it to the door.
"I lo…"
A hand came out of nowhere and gripped the back of her sweatshirt. With one hard, unexpected pull Buffy was yanked into the darkness behind the woodshed.
Faith blinked at the spot where she had been, face creased in confusion for several moments before she was sure Buffy wasn't about to suddenly pop back into existence again.
"Man, I been hit on the freakin' head too many times this year," she decided as she turned and leapt back into the middle of Big-Ass-Lizard-Fest 2004.
Behind the woodshed, Buffy not so playfully slapped Giles' arm continuously until they made it to the front of the small wooden structure where the other two were waiting nervously by the door.
"She was…about to…say the… L word…Giles!" she ground out between slaps. "We haven't…said that…yet!"
"Do you bloody mind?" Giles snapped, getting as far from her as he could in the huddle and clutching his arm with a grimace. "You were told not to engage!"
"I didn't engage. She engaged. She fell over me before I could run away."
"You should not have stopped!" he insisted angrily.
"You're the one who made a big deal out of me still being The Slayer," Buffy shot back. "And sorry, but The Slayer can't watch a vicious demon kill my unsuspecting friends!"
"If you had kept running you wouldn't have seen anything."
Buffy opened her mouth to retaliate but Xander spoke first.
"We could argue about this all night…" he began before adding firmly. "But let's not."
"Yeah, we need to get inside," Willow's voice was even weaker than before and there was a patch of singed yellow grass half a foot away that could have been the handiwork of her stomach.
Wasting no more time, Buffy barged through the woodshed door. It was pitch black inside but at once she felt the familiar feeling of twenty-five six inch high, purple people cannon-balling into her. They clung on to her hair, her clothes, her sneaker laces, knocking her off-balance. A second later she was flat out, pinned to the floor on her back and groaning at the sudden fall.
"I really shoulda knocked first, huh?"
[Tbc... Thanks for reading :)]