Grimacing against the pain in his burning muscles, Angel brought up his sword to counter a vertical slash from a goblin and quickly brought the blade down and across it’s gut, neatly disemboweling the creature. On his right Angel saw spike in full game face gripping a struggling goblin by the horns and break it’s neck with a resounding crack before kicking the ruined body against the right wall of the alley. Difficult as it was to believe, they were actually winning. Even more improbable, Gunn, while indisputably out of the fight, was still alive. The street muscle turned lawyer and back again was slumped against the wall with a hand held to his bleeding side while Illyria fended away all comers. The former god casually grabbed onto members of the incoming horde and didn’t just kill them. She massacred them, squeezing skulls into bloody mush between her palms, throttling monsters with their own intestines; and in one memorable incident even beating a 10 foot demon to death with it’s own severed leg.
With a sudden surge of determination Angel took his sword, still wet with dragon blood and decapitated a howling priomotu with it. Angel could hardley belive it, but that was the last of them, they’d won. “Well.” Spike remarked, leaning against the wall of the alley as he fumbled through his coat pocket for a cigarette “Bully for us. Kinda makes me wish I hadn’t pissed away all my money on blood and booze.” Ignoring Spike, Angel hurried over towards Illyria who already had Gunn slung in her arms as if he weighed no more than a toddler. “This one requires medical attention. Now.” She spoke as if Gunn was a stray dog who’d been hit by a passing car. “Right.” Angel said ‘There’s a hospital three blocks-“ he stopped talking as his eyes fell upon a SECOND horde, this group even larger then the last. “Well.” Spike said as he regrettably took the half smoked cigarette, threw it to the ground and picked up a blood stained axe. “I’d say where fucked.”
“Illyria.” Angel said, his face like stone. “Protect Gunn.” In truth, there was little point behind this statement- they were all going to die. Regardless, Angel and Spike took point while Illyria gently set Gunn on the ground and stood in front of him, hands clenched tightly into fists. The hordes were almost upon them, Angel and Spike raised their blades high when- WHAM! The dumpsters and assorted debris lining the walls of the alley flew on their own accord into a powerful barricade, separating the champions and demons. Angel stared at the wall in bewilderment, unable to even voice a question before another figure stepped out of the same shadowy alcove Spike had when they’d first arrived. Angel’s brain, already pushed to the breaking point simply burned out. “Bethany?” he gawked. The unsure telekinetic girl who in the past 3 years had undeniably grown into a self confident woman merely nodded and with a push of her hand forced the wall of debris against the demons with the force of a Mack truck. Caught of guard, those in the front were knocked off balance and run over like so many speed bumps while the more agile ones in later rows leapt above the barrier and lunged towards their targets.
The first of these were cut down in a hail of arrows from the rooftops lining the alley. This was getting to be too much; Angel looked up and saw The Groosalug with a group of Pyleans on the right already discarding their bows in favor of swords and making their way down the fire escape to join the battle below while on the left he saw her. Buffy. Faith was with her, along with at least a dozen slayers and they had discarded the fire escapes and simply leapt down beside Angel and the others. “Sorry we’re late.” Buffy cracked. “Yeah” Faith chimed in. “Baggage claim at LAX is a bitch.” There was no more time for talk as the Hordes fell upon them like a Tidal wave. The beasts fought with furious power, but even they must have known from the beginning that this battle was a lost cause. Inspired by fresh re-enforcements and a renewed chance of victory Angel Spike and Illyria fought as hard as they could while around them the Slayers and Pyleans were an unstoppable destructive force of their own. Still, none could match the human tornado that was Bethany. The young woman sent entire ranks flying with a mere sweep of her arm, she even turned one poor bastard inside out just by thinking it.
A mere 15 minutes later the last of the demon horde had been cut down, this time no more came. Wiping blood from a cut over his eye Angel walked over to Buffy. “You…” he began but faded off, lost for words. “You came. And you were here. But I didn’t …You couldn’t how….How did you?” Finally forsaking the idea of communication as useless he simply grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into a deep kiss, instantly feeling her respond. They stayed like that a long time, which Spike was grateful for. It gave him a good while to gather himself up and act as if he couldn’t care less. “Bloody well figures.” He muttered to himself. Or at least he meant for it to be too himself, apparently Buffy had better hearing then he thought. At the sound of his voice she broke away from Angel and looked at the British Vampire in disbelief. “Give me a minute Angel.” She told him and started to walk towards Spike. “Buffy-“ he began and reached for her arm but she merely shrugged off his arm and quickened her pace. Intrigued, Spike began to move, bridging the gap between them. As soon as Buffy was close enough she Spike with an uppercut hard enough to knock him to the floor into a pile of demon guts.
“Ah Christ!” he yelled, rolling onto his stomach and back to his feet. ‘I wasn’t expecting a kiss but don’t go saving me if you’re just gonna knock my bloody head off!” But he could see Buffy had tears in her eyes. “You son of a bitch!” she cried. “You were just going to let me keep thinking you were dead!?” Angel turned away, he really didn’t need to see this. Striding to the far end of the Alley he could see a Pylean applying a poultice of bandages dipped in some sort of green paste onto Gunn’s wound. “He’ll be allright?” Angel asked and the green faced warrior nodded. “This will stop the bleeding, but he’ll need to rest for a few days.” Angel bent down and squeezed Gunn’s arm reassuringly. “We made it.” He told him. “But how?” Gunn responded. “Where the hell did all these guys come from?” The truth was Angel wondered himself, he certainly hadn’t called any of them.
“Angel!” The Vampire turned and saw Bethany was coming towards him. He rushed over to her, reciprocating when she hugged him tightly around the waist. “Your ok.” She said. “Thanks to you.’ He responded. ‘How’d you know to come here?” Bethany paused for a second. ‘It was weird, yesterday I was at work and I just got this feeling that you needed my help. And that you’d be here in this alley. It was like a…premonition or something” Angel realized.. He put a hand onto Bethany’s shoulder. “Thank you, I mean that.” She just smiled and squeezed his hand briefly. He went over to where Groo was wiping his blade free of demon slime with a rag. “Greetings Angel! I hope we arrived in a timely manner?” Angel smiled “Timely enough, Listen I need to know how you knew to come here.” Groo grinned broadly. “I think perhaps my princesses’ potion did not work as well as it should have. Two days ago I was struck with a vision of you in danger- I rallied these members of the Deathwok clan as swiftly as I good and hurried here.” The potion had nothing to do with it Angel realized, someone had wanted them here and broke some rules to do it. Angel’s brow crinkled “These are from the Deathwok clan?” he asked. “Of course!” the voice of Landak cried out “Where there is battle there shall always be the Deathwok clan!” Angel turned, expecting too see the tall muscular Pylean standing behind him, instead he saw a smaller stout warrior holding Landak’s head by the severed stump of the neck. “You got hit?” Angel asked rather stupidly. If Landak still had shoulders he would’ve shrugged. The treacherous snake struck me from behind while I was dispatching one of his consorts. It’s of no consequence, the battle is won and my kin have possession of my body. Speaking of, does Krevlornswath still fight beside you?” Angel’s eyes fell away uncomfortably, he had half expected Lorne to leave after what Angel had asked him to do, nor did he have hopes that Lorne would return if he ever got word that Angel and the others survived. “Lorne …Lorne died. He fought valiantly and achieved what he had to.”
Landak grew silent and Angel saw a look that passed for grief cross the Pylean’s face. “Once we have returned home we will perform the proper rituals in his honor. He will not be forgotten.” Angel nodded, dead or not Lorne deserved it. “Thank you.” An uncomfortable silence was beginning to loom when Groo guided Angel away by the arm. “ It was a very noble plan.” Groo told him. “To have Cordiela taken away and protected while the rest of you rode out nobly to face death. I imagine she will be most grateful to hear you’re alive.” Groo was prepared to go on when he noticed the look across Angel’s face. “My princess is safe?” he asked hopfully. Angel couldn’t bring himself to face The Groosalug as he told him what he probably should have right after it happened. “I’m sorry Groo. Cordy died.” The Groosalug lapsed into a numb silence and began to walk away. Angel raised a hand to comfort him but Groo wearily pushed it away. “I need to go.” He said quietly. Angel nodded. “Groo, thank you. I mean that.” He said. Groo smiled sadly, making no attempted to hide the moisture in his eyes. “Don’t forget her Angel.”
“I won’t.” Angel walked away, feeling emotionally drained by the conversation he’d just had. His roving eyes fell upon Buffy and Spike, he was disappointed to see she no longer looked like she wanted to hit him. Now the two were conversing quietly away from the others and as Angel watched Spike pulled her closely into a hug.
“Pretty hypocritical.” Angel wasn’t surprised to hear Faith’s voice behind him. “Always giving me the never give up speeches and then you go off on this kamikaze mission.” He almost smiled. “Well I’m not complaining that I’m still here.” The brunette smirked at him. “Excuses, excuses. You should’ve told B what you had planned, instead we needed to wait until Red got the message express from the guys upstairs.” Angel wasn’t surprised to hear that, apparently it hadn’t been his time yet. Faith was looking over Angel’s shoulder. “I think Buffy would like a word.” Faith made a small mock bow as the blond slayer appeared. “I’ll leave you kids alone.” She walked off in Spike’s direction, pulling a flask from her jean jacket pocket as she did. “Hey Spike! You want a hit!?” was the last thing Angel heard before focusing his attention completely onto Buffy. “So what do we do now?” he asked. Buffy shrugged. “I think maybe we should stay. I mean, they’ll probably come back. I can have more slay-“ Angel cut her off. “No- they won’t try it again, not like this anyway. I think The powers just made it very clear to the Senior Partners that this isn’t a game they can play with such a heavy hand. As far as full frontal assaults go I think this is it.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight against him. “This isn’t somewhere for you to be. This is my fight, my city.” Buffy nodded, she’d done this scene too many times to expect otherwise. Still, her voice cracked as she said. “Okay.” As she made to leave Angel pulled her in for one last kiss. “You’re still my girl.” He told her before allowing her hand to slip from his. “Always.” She responded.
“Gunn told me I’d find you up here.” It was nightfall; Angel, Gunn, Illyria and Spike had broken into the Hyperion and spent the day holed up inside. Now with the sun down again Angel had gone out to the garden to just think on his own for a bit. Which was why he wasn’t surprised to find that now, after being silent most of the day, Spike had decided he wanted to talk. “So this is where you guys set up shop?” The younger vampire asked as he came up on Angel’s left. “Beats the hell out of the rat hole you called an apartment the first time I came a calling.” “Right.” Angel responded. “Because you live in the lap of luxury.” Spike made a throwaway gesture with his hand. “I got what I need. The question is, what do you need?” Angel took this into consideration for a moment. ‘I think I need to go back. We need to go back. The red head, Bethany, when I first met her she was a wreck. We helped her and you saw how she is now. That’s what I want to go back to. Just Helping, one person at a time. A woman once told me that people don’t need a champion, they need someone who understands the value of compromise. But she was wrong, the world needs champions. And we’re going to be those champions.” Spike made a vague sound of approval “Count me in. I’d imagine Charlie boy’ll go for it too. Illyria doesn’t look like she has anything better to do. So it looks like you’ve got a team….Lorne’s really not coming back though, is he?” Angel shook his head. “Figured as much.” Spike went on. “Don’t get me wrong, I loved old red eye’s as much as anybody, but this wasn’t his place.” Angel got up off the bench he’d been sitting on and looked Spike in the eye. “But it’s ours and it’s time we made the best of it. You have any money?” Spike snorted. “Yeah, haven’t you known? I’ve been working the morning shift at a tanning salon in Sun Valley.”
“Fuck.” Angel swore. “We’ll need money to get an office and buy now Wolfram and Hart’ll have frozen my assets.” Spike thought about that for a minute. “Not that this isn’t a little like grave robbing, but Wes and Fred must’ve kept something stashed away for a rainy day, any way we can get our hands on that?” Angel considered it. “It’s possible, there’s going to be some legal road blocks but Gunn could look into that.” He said. “Right.” Spike put in ‘And if that doesn’t pan out we can pretend to slip in a McDonald’s or something and have Charlie boy sue ‘em for us.” For the first time Gunn, who’d been leaning heavily on the door frame spoke up. “Don’t know how I feel bout that second one, but I do know for a fact that Wes left everything to us in the event of his death, so no problem. There.” Spike was grinning broadly now and shouted through the doorway into the hotel lobby. “What about you blue bird? Anything on your schedule/” Without even bothering to look up from the crack in desk she was examining Illyria called back. ‘I stay because it suits me.” Spike smirked. ‘Fair enough. Looks like we got us a plan.” For the first time Angel really grinned back. “Looks like we do.”
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