Dr. Fate stiffened as he felt a beacon of chaotic energy burst forth from the Earth below, shredding whatever spells that had protected it from his sight. His hands instantly formed familiar sigils of Order based spells to divine the reason and source of the corruption and discovered to his horror that a Ritual of Ascension had been performed and was nearing completion.
There were a dozen heroes in the Watchtower cafeteria, as they operated all around the world the time difference required rotating shifts at all hours of the day or night, and more than a few turned their eyes towards the agitated mage who'd made sure to be on hand for the solar eclipse just in case some magical practitioner had taken advantage of the planets' alignment.
"Superman, Flash," Dr. Fate called out, "on me!"
The two heroes dropped their meals and were by his side in an instant.
"We have a mass sacrifice to stop," Dr. Fate announced.
"Where?!" Flash demanded.
"Somewhere on the coast of California," Dr. Fate replied. "I'll teleport us down, you must prevent whatever mass casualty is planned while Superman deals with the monster and I neutralize his magic."
"What are we looking at?" Superman asked grimly.
"Transformation into an Old One, a demon of incalculable power," Dr. Fate replied. "It'll appear as a giant animal, hit it as hard as you can. There's no more time for discussion, let's go!"
The three vanished in a flash of golden light.
Blue Devil turned to Plastic Man. "Should we..."
"Clean up after them?" Plastic Man asked with a grin as he got up to grab their trays.
"I was going to say teleport down to assist," Blue Devil said.
"If they needed our help, they'd have asked," the stretchy hero replied, "just hang loose and wait to see if we're called in, but I can't see what we can add to the situation if they can't cover it themselves. You gotta have the right tool for the right job and I trust their judgment, they've been at it for ages."
Blue Devil nodded and helped him bus their tables. "Yeah, fighting Old Ones isn't exactly something I think is in my toolbox."
"You never know," Plastic Man said with a grin, "sometimes they just need someone to heckle and dodge as a distraction. Big powers often equals big egos after all."
"Now that I can handle," Blue Devil said with a toothy grin.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The three heroes appeared on the stage in a flash of golden light, Superman blurring forward to slam a right cross into the giant snake's maw before it could swallow the school principal who looked to be a half step from attacking it.
"Fire!" someone called out and the Flash spun around to see all the graduating students firing at a crowd of innocent bystanders.
He quickly sprung into action, snatching flaming arrows out of the air and disarming the mind controlled students before they could accidentally injure someone.
"Close ranks!" the leader of the students or possibly cultists of some kind called out as they drew backup weapons and moved together like a well trained army.
The Flash appeared in front of him, easily dodging his attempt to make like Van Helsing. "I've heard of school shooters before, but a school general?" he quipped, wondering if there was some magical doohickey they needed to destroy or if they were all willing villains. He wasn't seeing anything glowing but Dr. Fate would know.
He spotted Superman giving the mother of all uppercuts to a massive snake, sending it crashing into the school and a blonde girl yelled, "Giles now!"
"I have no idea how you-" Flash began when the school and giant snake exploded.
"Form battle lines!" the young man called out and the students prepared for close quarters combat.
The Flash really hoped Dr. Fate found time to give him a head's up before he was forced to give concussions to some hundred odd teens to protect the local population, he thought to himself as he blurred through the makeshift army, disarming them once more.
"Flash, behind you!" Superman called out.
The Flash spun around and saw that the local population was sprouting fangs and moving towards the students.
"What? Oh," he muttered to himself, realizing he'd definitely read the situation wrong and suddenly understood why all the students were armed like they were facing an army of vampires... because they were!
Thankfully he just happened to have a large amount of wooden stakes to deal with the matter. He quickly checked each vampire, making sure they were cold and fangy before inserting a stake and moving on to the next one.
Superman took a deep breath and blew the debris from the exploding school back away from the students while putting out the resulting fires. "Everybody stand down!" he ordered, seeing the students were safe, the transformed monster had been dealt with, and the vampires dusted.
"I've dealt with the spells keeping this town hidden," Dr. Fate said, landing on the stage as several teens and an older man, all with heavy mystical taint joined them.
"Wish I'd known it was vampires attacking students and not mind controlled students attacking the general population," The Flash said with a sigh, "but I took care of it."
"This place is infested with the undead and demonic," Dr. Fate said solemnly, "the amount of vampires you staked were probably a tenth of their population."
Superman turned and scanned the city. "There are still hundreds hidden away and tunnels beneath the city to allow them free travel."
"You guys are real... Why did I forget you were real?" the blonde girl asked in disbelief.
"A Lethe spell to affect memory," the older British man said with a groan. "Powered by the Hellmouth it would be almost impossible to break, keeping us isolated."
"Indeed," Dr. Fate agreed. "You gathered the supernaturally inclined to fight back, not knowing you could have called on us?"
"I'm afraid so," he said, shaking his head. "A simple phone call, if our minds had been unclouded, could have saved so many lives over the years."
"Several of you could use my assistance," Dr. Fate said. "Flash, Superman, if you'd care to sweep the town of undead while I debrief them at the Watchtower."
"We got it," The Flash agreed and the two quickly vanished in a blur of speed.
Dr. Fate gestured and the small group appeared in what appeared to be a normal meeting room.
"Bright," Oz noted laconically.
Dr. Fate reached up and removed his golden helm, turning into an old man in a simple gray suit. "Yes, but useful. I'm Kent Nelson when not in costume."
"Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer," she introduced herself.
"Rupert Giles, her Watcher," Giles offered.
"Willow Rosenberg, Buffy's friend," the red head offered.
"And a powerful magic user who needs training," Kent said with a wince. "Your aura has several dark taints."
"Daniel Osborne, I go by Oz," he offered.
"Lycanthrope," Kent said with a nod. "If you like, I know of an order of monks who can teach you how to control it."
"I would love that," Oz said, eyes lighting up.
"If this is your entire group we can begin," Kent offered.
"This is everyone even slightly mystically inclined," Giles said, "barring a few normal people who sometimes assist."
"Like Mom," Buffy said brightly, causing the two girls to giggle and Oz to raise an eyebrow wondering why they were excluding Cordelia and Xander. "Angel," he suddenly said, realizing they'd forgotten the cursed vampire.
"Oh, and Angel," Buffy said.
"Vampire cursed with a soul by the Romani for crimes against the tribes," Giles offered.
"Let me inform Flash and Superman so there's no accidents," Kent said, snatching up his helm, "they act rather quickly."
"Oh yeah," Buffy said, wide eyed, "that'd be of the good."
Giles felt a faint trace of satisfaction at Kent's wince at Buffy's mangling of the English language, glad he no longer suffered the presence of teenagers alone.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"You may need a U-Haul," Riley said as he stared at the massive library underneath the frat.
"Nah," Xander waved it off, "vampires are like magpies, a lot of these will be worthless fakes or school books. Pretty sure that entire bookcase over there is just various editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica."
"That's a relief," Riley said with a sigh, "I was afraid I'd have to call for backup."
Xander chuckled and tried to make sense of things since it was obvious Sunday did not follow the Dewey Decimal System the way Giles did.
"First edition Hardy Boys," Riley said in wonder as he examined a shelf.
"It's yours," Xander said, "but if you see Nancy Drew let me know. I've got a friend who loves the series."
"Will do," Riley said as he carefully stacked the older boy's adventure series on a table. "For a vampire library, I was expecting more..."
"Evil dead," Xander said with a nod. "Very few books like that actually exist and they tend to eat all other books left near them, at least from what my school librarian said, but he may have been lying to keep one of our bibliophile friends from searching them out."
"I think I've found something," Riley said.
Xander joined him, wincing when he opened one of the heavy leather tomes. "Polgara porn," he muttered.
"Porn?" Riley asked in disbelief.
"Yeah," Xander said, checking several books and quickly reshelving them, "most of the demons who can access Earth share a lot of our not so noble traits."
"Hence porn," Riley realized with a chuckle.
"Look for Latin, Sumarian, and Middle English," Xander suggested, "most of the books we are looking for were probably written by religious orders."
"Can you read Sumerian?"
"If I go slow enough," Xander said with a grin. "Bingo!"
"Bingo?"
"Found the section on demons and their weaknesses," Xander said, "with multiple copies."
"I don't suppose they are in English?" Riley asked hopefully.
"Middle English for a couple, it's like English before there was spell check, written by a drunken Shakespearean actor," Xander said before falling silent in shock.
"What's wrong?" Riley asked.
"The bitch had two copies of the Slayer manual," Xander said, "which means... Well it probably just means she raided a couple of Watchers' libraries because if she'd bagged two Slayers we'd have known about it."
"Slayers? Watchers?" Riley asked.
"Mystical bloodline that is called to fight demons and the organization that supports them," Xander replied. "Getting called to fight demons as a teen sucks ass and they usually have short lifespans."
"How long have you been fighting demons?" Riley asked.
"Since I was a teen," Xander replied, "but I volunteered."
"How are you still alive?" he asked in disbelief.
"Luck and friends," Xander said. "Of course having the knowledge of what we were facing was a huge help. I expect you guys to do better than we did once you're up to speed."
"We have military training and the backing of the United States government, we damn well better," Riley said.
"That's the spirit," Xander said with a grin. "Well let's start loading up books, this is probably going to take several trips."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Xander packed the last of his things into the trunk of his car, the sun was beginning to go down and the calls he'd made had gone unanswered, it was time to go.
The engine started up with a purr that made him smile. He was definitely going to learn whatever type of magic Miss White had used and he had a couple of boxes filled with books that should help him on his way in the trunk, but that was for later, now was the time to hit the open road.
For a brief second he could see Willow and Jesse in the passenger seat like they'd planned when they were twelve... and then the moment was gone and he shifted into drive, pulling onto the road and away from 'home'.
Typing by: Abyssal Angel
Beta By: Abyssal Angel and Mist of Shadows