"This sucks." Angel thought as he rode along in the mouth of the giant serpent. It was hot, wet, and smelled very, VERY bad, "Hope he just remembers my instructions."
Angel felt impact in the next few seconds. Then he was flying through the air and slammed into a wall. He held his head and looked up. The sun greeted him and his skin began to sizzle. He had only a few seconds of life remaining unless he immediately took cover. That's when the Mayor's tail slammed into him and knocked him through two metal double doors into a darkened hallway. The burning stopped as the Mayor poked his huge head into the double doors.
"Comfy?" the giant serpent asked.
"Not especially." Angel said standing up, "This is the place. I remember this hallway."
"Good. I don't have to kill you then. Where's Faith?" the Mayor asked, as he began to slither into the hallway as best his girth would allow.
"Couple hundred of feet away. The place looks damaged. Probably by the earthquake that the Hellmouth caused when it erupted." Angel stated.
The penitentiary was a shambles. All the lights were out and electrical wires jutted out everywhere. There were no sounds of movement or talking. It was very quiet, with only the occasional rasp of electricity sparking from cables.
"Smell anything?" Angel asked.
"Well, to be honest I'm not quite used to being a giant snake yet. I died before I could fully develop my abilities. Which reminds me, I'll need to eat soon. I don't feel so well." The Mayor said.
"Don't eat me.", Angel ordered.
"Now, I know that Bill Cosby used to joke about the good old days and how people ate dust, but that particular flavor isn't on my pallet after snacking on Trick. Heh heh. Bill Cosby. Great comedian. Doesn't need toilet humor to be funny." the Mayor snickered as he followed along slowly.
"This is too weird. We should be seeing some people here. Guards, prisoners that escaped, something. This doesn't feel right." Angel explained.
"Now there's an interesting sensation." The Mayor said suddenly.
"What?"
"I feel things. Vibrations. It's unusual." The Mayor replied.
"Most snakes are primarily deaf and blind. They usually go by sense of smell and feel." Angel said.
"Now see I knew that. Saw it on Wild Kingdom once. I think I'm feeling a lot of vibrations, towards the center of this building." The Mayor replied.
"Human?" Angel asked.
Suddenly there was a loud growling mere feet from them. Two insidiously ugly vampires with glowing yellow eyes stood fifteen feet away from Angel and the Mayor.
"Scratch that then." Angel said, his facial features going to his vampire form.
The Mayor barreled forward knocking Angel to the wayside. The two vampires ceased to exist seconds later. Angel growled in frustration as he stood up and saw the Mayor still rocketing down the hallway.
"Sometimes I hate my life." Angel sighed as he followed the carnage the giant snake left is its wake.
He finally caught up to the Mayor in a gigantic room. It was the cellblock. Angel took in his surroundings and saw the Mayor thrashing an attacking, with dozens of vampires clinging to him like ants on a worm. Angel further scanned the area and saw human bodies, the women who had been incarcerated here, hanging upside down from ropes as their blood dripped from them. Angel would have been nauseated, if he hadn't done things that were much worse in his life.
A vampire leapt at him and struck him, hard. Angel slammed into a wall and looked face to face with his assailant. It wasn't too big actually. In fact it was short and thin, but its features were hideous even by vampire standards. It reminded Angel on older vampires like the Master. Bald and hideous, it growled like an animal and hissed at him defiantly. Angel's memory drew back on all the supernatural lore he had accumulated in his two hundred and fifty years of life. This was no mere vampire. This was an offshoot of his species that had fewer weaknesses, less intelligence, and a serious vicious streak. It was a Turok-Han. Angel simply bared his fangs and attacked.
Giles stood in the LaGuardia International Airport and watched the TV screens in fear. His flight to Los Angeles had been diverted here due to all the destruction in the area and no new flights were going out. Reports came in across various stations about the immense destruction the now absent ships had rained all over California and various spots in the world the day before.
Giles was in shock at all that had happened. When he had first learned of the "Sunnydale Fireball" when he had landed in New York, he had nearly collapsed. All the people he had known in addition to the makeshift family he had made over the years were gone. The town was annihilated.
There was no way of getting to California. At least by airplane. Giles mulled his options and found a solution. He ran to the ticket counter to get a one-way ticket back to England. There was no way of getting to California by way of airplane, but magick on the other hand was something else entirely. He merely hoped the Coven would be willing to aid him.
The floor of the former town of Sunnydale stirred. Something was writhing beneath the rock. Something was getting hungry.
Angel slammed his fist into the Turok-Han and moved it back. It was strong and resilient. Angel silently cursed. He wasn't doing as well as he would have hoped. The spring loaded stake in his coat sleeve had no effect on the monster. This species apparently had evolved past the stake through the heart method.
The Turok-Han pushed him back away from the cellblock and into the hallway, where Angel could no longer see the Mayor, but could still hear him thrashing about and roaring. Angel growled in frustration as the Turok-Han pressed him against the wall and rained blow after blow upon him. Angel struggled back, biting the demon ferociously in addition to kneeing its groin. The Turok-Han pressed onward.
"Evolved past the nut shot too huh?" Angel growled through his teeth at the creature in front of him.
The creature had no understanding of Angel's words and simply bit into his shoulder causing Angel to scream in pain. Seconds later, Angel flinched as a metal bar effortlessly cut through the head of the Turok-Han and stopped mere inches away from his face. It fell backwards, and Angel saw his savior, all clad in a wife beater and standard issue prison pants.
"Hey Angel. How's tricks?"
"Nice to see you too Faith." Angel said examining his wound before directing his attention back to her, "How are you out and about?"
"Quake hit a few hours ago. Really messed the place up as you can see. We were doing okay though 'till these things came up out of the floor. The guards let us out. Figured we were better off out of our cells than sitting in them. Didn't know what to think except you know "Vamps bad. Stake them". Course it didn't work out too well." the Dark Slayer explained.
"They're Turok-Han. Not the same as my kind. Whole new ball game." Angel answered her, "I saw what those things did to the other prisoners. Are there survivors?"
"Not that I know of. I managed to get to the utility tunnels under the prison with what weapons I could find." Faith nodded to the downed Turok-Han with the steel prison bar embedded in its skull, "I did have a few people with me at first. They didn't last. Hell, I'm barely Five by Five myself. These things are tough. Led them all over the utility tunnels and got into the vents. Figured I could get out this way. Heard a big racket then heard you screaming. What is that big noise anyway?"
Angel looked down the hall to the opening in the wall where he could still make out the Mayor fighting off the Turok-Han. The mammoth snake had wanted to find Faith more than anything else in the world. But she was a changed woman now, and it probably wasn't best for her to see her only father figure as a giant snake either.
"Big demon. It's holding them off, so while it is I think we'd best…." Angel turned kicking the wounded Turok-Han into a loose electrical wire, the steel bar touching the wire and making the vampire burn from the inside out, "get back to L.A."
Faith watched the Turok-Han burn and convulse.
"Fire still does the trick." Faith quipped.
"Can you hot wire one of the cars outside and drive it to L.A. with me in the trunk?" Angel asked.
"Please. I've hot wired cars in my sleep before." Faith smirked.
"Thank God for small favors." Angel replied as they took off, leaving the Mayor to fend for himself.
Daniel Holtz was a man without a family. It had been taken from him centuries ago by the cruel vampire Angelus and his consort Darla. He had been given a second chance however, not by a deity however, but by a demon. The demon had transported him to the proper place and time to do battle with the creatures and now vengeance would be his. That was the plan of course. But as he surveyed the city's landscape, his desire for vengeance was quelled and his desire to protect the inhabitants of Los Angeles from demons took over. So far he had killed a few Fyarrl, a Polgara, a minor Frolax demon, and many, many vampires. He had even gone into the sewer system to kill a few, but had gotten more than he bargained for when he had heard the Master had an army beneath the streets.
He had heard of the Master in his own time. He was ancient even then. He was a threat, as impossible as it sounded, greater than Angelus. Therefore he was the main priority now.
"When night falls, the Master's army will blanket the city, devouring and turning more into vampires. They will reproduce exponentially. This cannot happen." Holtz thought to himself, "But I am bereft of my followers. The earthquake claimed them. But I have survived. And because I am alive, I must do everything in my power to stop these things from devastating the city. But I can't do it alone, so I will need allies. Loathe as I am to admit it, the only ones capable of halting this invasion are Angelus and his blind followers. Ironic, in order to save the lives of thousands, I must ally myself with my most hated enemy. And that is only if they accept my help. Regardless of whether they accept it or not, they will have it. And then, when the struggle is over, Angelus will die."
Daniel Holtz smiled and headed for the ruins of the Hyperion hotel.
Wesley sighed at the infant he held. Connor merely looked up at him and cooed.
"It's sad, that you should have to go through this. You're so young and already the world is closing in around you. I suppose that how all the Slayers that the Council has recruited feel at times. A harsh, violent, world forced upon them that they have little to no control over. If only you knew what world you came into." Wesley said quietly to the infant.
"Wouldn't really change things." Cordelia said sitting down by him, "known about how the world really is for about six years now. Still sucks even when you have a good idea of what's coming."
"This place is certainly filling up isn't it?" Wesley commented as the room was packed with various humans and demons with more coming in every moment.
"Yeah.", was Cordy's simple reply before she started bursting into tears. Wesley saw her pain and lay Connor down into his makeshift sleeping space and put his arms around Cordelia.
"I'm sorry Cordelia. I really am for all that's happened." Wesley said to her.
"You have nothing to be sorry of….it's my fault. I had a vision but I didn't know if it was just a vision or a dream because I was half awake and instead of telling anyone about it I come down here and start drinking." Cordelia wept into his shoulder.
"Cordelia, even if you did know there was really nothing you could have done. Nothing any of us could have done." Wesley said trying to ease her pain.
"Yeah well that doesn't make it any easier! My parents are dead Wes. I never spoke to them that much and now I'll never speak to them again! Buffy, Willow, and Xander are dead! Again, I wasn't close to them but they were still important people in my life and now they're gone! And of course, Angel has to go running off to help his Buffy and now he might be dead too." Cordelia cried.
Wesley looked to Connor and then Cordelia, "Don't say that. You don't know that."
"No Wes, I don't know that. I don't know if he's alive though either because it's been a day and we still haven't heard from him. And do you know what the worst part is? I feel like there's this hole in my heart because I had feelings for him and never got to tell him. Do you know what that feels like? It hurts! A lot!" Cordelia explained.
A hand rested on Cordy's shoulder.
"It's alright Cordy. I'm here." Angel said looking down at the Seer.
Cordelia turned and looked up at the vampire in awe. Then she practically leapt on him and gave him a deep, powerful kiss that would have left him breathless, had he needed to breathe. Angel was for the most part shocked, and pulled away.
"Wow." was Angel's rather stunned response.
"I was so worried." Cordelia said embracing him.
"Wow. I mean….its okay. I'm here now." Angel explained, his lips still tingling.
"Did you find anyone from the Sunnydale contingent?" Wesley asked.
"Well, yes and no Wes." Faith said as she strode up beside Angel.
"Oh bollocks." Wesley sighed.