A/N: Warning. This chapter has Character Death.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Vegas was burning. Fran Rowan had opened a portal on the top of Kindred Hospital on Sahara Avenue. Out of all the hospitals in Las Vegas it was the only hospital showing living babies. And now from the rooftop of the hospital the group watched as Sin City burned.

"We need to get those babies and get back to the Arms," Caridad stated firmly.

"Look at them," Ayane pointed to the zombies down on the streets. "There is something different about them."

Kensi watched them intently. "They aren't just wandering around. When we first started seeing them they were just wandering aimlessly, looking for easy food. But now, it looks like they're getting smarter or if not smarter more strategic."

"Like we need anything to make this more difficult," Beckett sighed.

The team began moving towards the door leading into the building, each taking the position they'd been assigned. Caridad was the first through the door into the silent hallway. She spared a glance over the stairwell, but could see nothing but dim grayness. She motioned for them to follow her and began to lead her group down. Jack O'Neill followed the girl down the stairs. He had a bad feeling about this mission, but knew they had to take it. They couldn't leave children to die.

The group finally came to a door and they stopped to listen. The door was heavy steel and Caridad frowned as she realized she couldn't hear anything through it. Making the decision, she made the hand motions and they set up to enter. It took both her strength and Ayane's to pop the door, and the clanging sound rang through the stairwell. Kensi Blye and Kate Beckett, both at the back thought they heard a hissing sound after the clanging, but there was nothing afterwards.

They moved into the hallway carefully, making sure to shut the door behind them and mark it with a large black X. The lights flickered within the corridor giving everything an eerie glow. The electricity gave off a faint buzz, but besides that and the movement of the group there was no other noise. They'd just reached a cross in the corridor when Ayane tumbled out of the way, pulling her blade at the same time. Everyone was startled when three zombies slid quickly in front of them, hissing and pausing before making their next move.

Two of the zombies were once women, a brunette and a redhead, both slender. Their eyes were glowing a soft red and their teeth, a grimy green, dripped with red and brown ichor. The last zombie was a tall African-American male with the same facial features.

"This is not good," Alex Donovan murmured.

"No, it is not," Ayane agreed. "These creatures are much more of a challenge than what we fought previously. They have hidden talents."

"Will not shooting them in the head kill them as it did before Alex Donovan," Teal'c asked.

"No idea," Alex responded. The group had been slowly backing up as they went, the three zombies in front of them, crouching, following, trying to pin them in. It was bizarre, the zombies not rushing them, but actually trying to position them.

"I think the babies are right beneath us," Fran told them. "I think I can open a tunnel from here to the babies for us to jump down into. Then we'll close the tunnel, and we'll portal from there."

"That sounds like a plan, do you really think you can pull it off?" Caridad asked.

Fran was silent for several moments. "I really do."

They formed a circle around Fran as she worked her magic, with Luna and Blaise lending her strength. Fran was sweating and exhausted by the time a cylindrical tunnel formed from their floor to the one below.

"Is there anyone down there?" Kensi called out. "We're here to rescue you."

"We're coming down, if you have weapons, please don't shoot," Jack added with a roll of his eyes.

Caridad jumped down first taking a defensive stance immediately, not sensing any danger in the immediate area. Ayane was the next to jump down. While Caridad kept an eye on her team coming through the tunnel, Ayane observed the room they'd dropped into. There were no incubators. She didn't know if there had been and those babies hadn't made it, or there just hadn't been any, but there weren't any now. However, there were ten bassinets

Everyone began jumping through the hole and bullets began to ring out above as the last slayer, Remy Hadley jumped through, still shooting. "Close it, close it, close it," she shouted as her back hit the ground, guns still aimed up.

Fran closed the tunnel quickly hearing a strange shrieking and stifling her own gasp as she saw a long grayish-brown arm caught in the ceiling. Obviously the zombies had tried to follow them through. Everyone stood, dusting themselves off, and most staring with morbid fascination at the still moving arm that protruded from the ceiling.

Before Caridad could move, a voice barked out an order. "Don't move!"

The Latina slayer closed her eyes for only a moment, feeling stupid for not securing the entire room before beginning to move. She moved her eyes over to the opposite wall and found a slender, strawberry blonde middle-aged woman, gripping a dark-blonde, teenage girl to her and both were standing as still as possible. Caridad's eyes continued to travel and her heart stuttered as she found one of the strange, mutated zombies in the middle of the room, between herself and the woman.

"He hasn't attacked us yet," the woman said quietly. "We thought they were all up a floor, but he'd come down to check on the babies… he'd been infected. He won't let us near the babies."

"Are you two the only survivors?" Remy asked.

The girl in the woman's arms sobbed, but the woman responded, "No. There are four men, uninfected, through the door to my right watching over children from the hospital daycare and children's wing."

"We've come to get you all out," Caridad shared. "Take you all back to our place in Colorado."

"How?" the girl muffled against the woman's chest. "He won't let us leave… won't let us check on the babies… won't let us move."

"Well, that's where we come in," Caridad rotated her neck to release tension. "Here's what I want. Slayers are gonna keep this guy busy while everyone else gets these two and the babies into the room with the other survivors. Once we're done with him we need to get as much baby equipment as we can."

"Is there something you'd like us to do," Blaise asked, motioning to himself and Luna.

"You can try your magic, I'm just not sure it'll work on them," Caridad told him. The gray-haired man, a big man who had been standing with his gaze fixed on the bassinets now stared at Caridad. It unnerved her. "Go!"

Everyone began moving, and the slayers moved in on the man who had immediately begun growling. The girls blocked out the sounds going on behind them, knowing that they couldn't let their guard down. This might be the easiest fight of their life or it could be the deadliest. The man slammed out his fist, finding Kensi's face, and Kensi felt the snap of her cheekbone breaking under the power of the punch. She flew back a few feet, but got right back up and ran into the melee. Ayane had drawn her blade and even as he parried her moves, more of the other slayers' hits got through. Caridad hadn't fought anything so difficult since she'd had to take on two Turok Han at once when she'd been a newbie. It made her wonder if the other groups were finding similar situations. Were the zombies mutating everywhere?

Even blocking things out they could still hear the bassinets being moved and male voices joining the voices of their own team. Four slayers were fighting the man and he was still managing to push them back. A screech rang out and the girls saw the redhead and the brunette from upstairs enter the room behind the man. Caridad saw the man's clawed hands going for Beckett's exposed face and she pushed the woman out of the way. Instead the man's hands ripped a large chunk from Caridad's throat. For a moment Caridad's eyes met Ayane's, and then she was snapping out orders. "Get the Hells through that door! Fran open the portal and get everyone through," she ground out, trying not to pass out. Her wound was mortal. She knew it and Ayane knew it. All she could be grateful for was that she wouldn't come back as one of these creatures.

Ayane was shoving the group through the doorway, Fran already working on a portal, dismissing the four men who were in the room holding firearms. Ayane still stood in the doorway, her blade managing to catch one of the man's arms, its extremely sharp blade slicing through the appendage as if it was paper.

"Go, Ayane," Caridad ordered.

"You do not know you are done, we can hold the door," the lilac haired beauty argued.

"I'm already dead, Mija," Caridad murmured.

Just as the words left her mouth, Ayane stepped back in horror. The gray-haired man's mouth opened, almost unhinging, and a swarm of wasps spewed out heading directly for the injured slayer. They covered her face and neck, their stingers penetrating her flesh. Ayane slammed the door shut, the other girls sliding cabinets in front of them. "There will be no going back out there to gather supplies," she said softly.

"What about that woman?" the teen from before asked. "We can't just leave her! What happened? Where is she? Why isn't she in here?"

"Lindsay!" the strawberry blonde snapped.

Ayane had dropped to her knees. "She is not coming. She has fallen," she told them, her voice full of shock.

"The portal's open, let's get everyone through," Remy told the others. The big man, Bass, was already moving to the kneeling woman.

"Come on, lil' darling," he put both hands on her shoulders, helping her up.

There were two men, both average height, and apparent average build wearing black, but tattooed with religious icons, watching as the group continued through the portal.

Ayane looked at Bass, "But we cannot even take her remains back for proper burial."

"I know, darlin', but we're still livin', and that's what Cari gave her life for," he told her gently. "She knew, and she sacrificed so we'd make it through."

"And we must make it through," she agreed. "Humanity's evil is changing, and I'm not sure even our Slayers will be able to defeat it." Then she, Bass and the two men who'd been watching walked through the portal.

So far the Los Angeles job had run smoothly, and the slayers had been able to take out multiple zombie threats. They'd run into an FBI Agent Don Eppes and a student teacher Amita Ramanujan in the hospital emergency room on their way up to the nursery. Amita was in shock and hadn't yet spoken, but Don immediately began working with the hunters and with the slayers, recognizing soldiers in all of them. There had been four babies in the nursery that were still alive. Carlos had opened their portal in the basement of the hospital, and now the group was trying to make their way back from the sixth floor nursery, back to the shielded portal.

Christie helped usher the still silent woman with the group, slayers in front, witches to the middle and hunters covering the back. They were moving at a quick pace, but the woman kept stumbling. "Come along, sweetheart," she murmured in her soft British accent. "We need to pick up our feet. We'll be someplace safe soon."

"Ch-ch-arlie… it k-k-k-killed him."

"I know, I know. There's been a lot of that, love," Christie's voice was firm.

Fred and George Weasley continued to ready items that they could toss at enemies if they came across any of the creatures to fight. Rona was pleased that everything seemed to be going well, but she knew not to voice it… voicing it was the kiss of death… she'd learned that at the feet of Buffy Summers.

They'd reached the first floor without pause, and were heading for the stairwell that would take them to the basement when there was a loud clanging noise. Everyone stilled for a moment, waiting to see if anything would attack. "We're gonna make it, we're gonna be fine," Brian O'Connor breathed out in a sigh.

"Fuck," Rona groaned at the same time that both Dean and Connor hissed and drew their firearms.

"What do you see?" Don asked.

"Brian there just insured that something bad is about to happen," Connor snapped quietly.

"You never, NEVER, say something like that!" Dean scolded.

"Sorry!"

"Let's just hurry," Rona ordered them all.

Just as she was about to open the basement door something came flying over the railing which overlooked the Lobby of the entrance. It landed on Ziva David. The NCIS Agent rolled with the assailant, knocking it off of her and into a wall. Dean was taking aim and firing before she'd even regained her feet. A second of the creatures came from the shadows behind Mia, and Mia spun into action, lashing out getting a foot into the thing's abdomen, making it fall back.

"Christie! Get the civilians and the babies through that portal, we'll be hot on your tail!" Rona called out.

Christie hurried the people carrying babies, Sam Winchester, Carlos, Amita and Don Eppes, through the door. They'd shielded the basement so she knew it was safe, but she wanted to get them through so she could go back and help the rest of the team. At the portal, both Sam and Carlos handed their bundles off to Amita and Don and sent them through, then the three headed back for battle.

Going through the door they immediately found that the number of combatants had increased to four zombies. The creatures were different; working together, tag teaming against the slayers and hunters. Fred and George were working on one of the zombies and after much hard work they managed to decapitate the thing. There was a horrible wail of anguish and Dean looked over to see that Brian had moved to help Mia, but instead had gotten in the way. The creature had pushed its clawed hand into the blonde man's throat, ripping it out. Mia was crying out, seeing the man she loved die in front of her eyes. Dean moved forward shooting the creature directly between the eyes and not stopping until it dropped, a bloody mash on the floor. Rona and Ziva had managed to destroy the third, and Connor, Christie and Sam had gotten the fourth.

Dean took Mia around the waist and pulled her towards the basement door.

"No, Brian!"

"We have to go, Doll," Dean told the screeching girl.

She fought him, her slayer strength easily bruising him. "BRIAN, BRIAN!"

"MIA!" he shouted in her face and got her attention. "He's gone. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but he's gone, and we have to go." Moments later she collapsed in his arms. Then they were through the door and on their way home.