Part Seven
Giles anxiously looked over Xander's shoulder as the young man sighted in on the cat demon Buffy and the dog were battling. Xander steadied his aim on the low wall of crates they were hiding behind at the head of the pier.
"Can you help her out at all, Xander?" the librarian asked him.
Xander shook his head. "No, I can't get a clear shot. They're moving around too much. I might hit Buffy or Max."
"Don't shoot Max!" Willow protested. "He might be some supernatural dog spirit, or whatever Buffy, said but he's still Max."
"I'm being very careful not to shoot the dog, Willow," Xander informed her. He looked back through the scope to try and get a bead on the demon and hope for the best when a flash of light and a loud explosion coming from the end of the dock blinded him for a moment. A second later, another similar blast washed over them from high above the docks where Eric was battling the other three demons.
"What was that?!" Xander exclaimed as he tried to clear his eyes. The flash blindness was rapidly fading but for the moment he couldn't see much of anything.
"I think that's two for the home team," Oz told him as he looked up into the sky where the battle continued.
"You okay," Willow asked Xander checking his eye as he blinked rapidly trying to clear them.
"Yeah, yeah. Just a lot of bright lights. I think I'm okay now. How's Buffy?"
"She was knocked down from when the cat demon exploded but she's getting up now," Giles peered down the docks towards the portal. "She appears to be okay. Wait. Wait. Something is wrong. The portal of summoning is not closing. It's remaining open. Oh bloody hell! There's more coming through! Hordes of them!"
Xander quickly blinked his eyes then looked through his scope again to see what Giles what was yelling about. He could see the Slayer getting wearily to her feet with blood and gore covering her head to toe. He shifted the focus of the sight towards the portal and the problem. Dozens of creatures of various shapes and sizes began to pour from the still open portal. Some of them resembled goblins while others looked like miniature devils. Still another resembled a giant funny looking hairy troll with a great orange nose running with a slight limp. He could see Buffy preparing herself for the fight while Max, glowing and barking, charged at the demons and tore into them. The distance between Slayer and demons disappeared within moments and Buffy was in the thick of them, her axe rising and descending on them. Xander supposed that these demons were not as powerful as the cat creature had been as he watched them cut down by Buffy's blade. It was a huge melee ripe with prospective targets and Xander took full advantage of the situation. He aimed his rifle and began to take opportunity shots against the demons dropping them with amazing effectiveness.
"Xander, the portal!" Giles warned him. Still more demons were pouring out of the hole in space and Xander trained his weapon towards it. He had moved the undermounted grenade launcher from the assault rifle and placed it instead on to the more effective sniper rifle which he was now using. He moved his finger to the launcher trigger and squeezed down upon it, sending the high explosive package sailing over the length of the pier and right into the glowing portal. A hail of shrapnel, debris, and demon body parts erupted from the hole and the stream of creatures crossing into this reality ceased for the moment. When another demon peered it's head through, Xander sent them another gift of 40mm destructive power.
"Good work, Xander. That should keep them for now," Giles praised him. "If only we could close that portal. Damn! I didn't bring my book on closing trans-dimensional portals! I didn't think we would need it this time. And the one time I don't bring it-! Damn!"
At his words, Willow raced back to Oz's van and returned carrying her laptop computer.
"Ah, Willow? What are you going to do?" Giles looked at her perplexedly. "I really don't believe that hacking into anything is going to help us. That is unless you can give us access to some orbital laser satellite or something?... Willow? You can't do that, can you?"
"No, Giles! When I took over Ms. Calendar's class, I found her laptop in her office. Her main computer had been trashed but the laptop had a bunch of her files on it that I downloaded. She carried around tons of spells on file. Had them cross referenced and indexed even!" Willow set her computer down on one of the crates and powered it up while Xander continued to take shots at the horde of demons on the pier. After it booted up, she quickly found the files. "See, just type in 'mystic portal' and ta-da! A quick description of assorted phenomenon and the spells to counter them."
"Willow, that's wonderful!" Giles looked at the computer screen over her shoulder. "But we must hurry! What does it say about this particular situation? Look under 'opening spells.' This doesn't seem like a usual summoning. What does it say?"
"Okay, okay! Here we are! Green portals-ours is green!-glowing brightly with intermittent fuzzes around the edges-we've got fuzzies!- It looks like it's not a permanent thing. There's no spell keeping the gate active. It's just a rip in space that somebody opened. If we can give the reality around it a little nudge, the universe will close the hole up itself! Here's the spell but-Oh! It's in Latin!"
"It's okay, Willow. I read Latin of course. But I will need your help. It looks like we will have to draw a circle of closure on the ground. We'll need something to draw it with. Anybody got any chalk or-Cordelia!"
"What?!" she yelled as if she had just been caught doing something.
"Cordelia, we need your lipstick," Giles told her impatiently.
"My lipstick? Do you know how much this stuff cost me? This is my favorite color!" Cordelia pulled the stick out of her purse and looked down at it. 'Well, Chase? End of the world time. I guess we have to make sacrifices,' She resignedly thought to herself. "Here," as she handed it over to Giles. He snatched it from her and quickly began drawing mystical symbols on the ground, Willow guiding him from the computer.
"Whoa! We got a problem," Xander informed them. "There's some big hairy guy out there giving Buffy problems. I've been pumping bullets into the guy but he's not going down. Uh-oh! He's looking this way!"
"Pretty woman!" came the hoarse cry from the end of the dock. "Pretty woman!" Xander watched as the giant hairy creature in rags began running down the docks at them. It bypassed Buffy, and even with the monster's limp, Xander could see that she would never be able to catch up with it, even if she could escape the fight she was embroiled in. Xander fired bullet after bullet into the creature but they never fazed it. When the beast was halfway down the pier and well away from Buffy, Xander readied another grenade and fired it. The beast ran through the blast barely pausing.
"That was my last grenade! This guy's coming in and bullet's ain't doing it! Giles?"
The Watcher looked up from his drawings, pushing the slipping glasses back up. "Shoot him some more?" Giles tentatively suggested.
"Okay. Hadn't tried that!" The sarcasm dripped from his voice as he plugged the monster repeatedly with the rifle.
"Pretty woman!" the creature yelled as neared the group huddled behind the stacked crates. Cordelia watched his fast approach and Xander's desperate attempts to stop it. Fear began to grow in the pit of her stomach. Pretty woman? It had to be talking about her. There were no other pretty women here. She began to grow frantic. If Xander couldn't stop it, then it would just tear right through their pitiful defense of crates and barrels and possibly kill everyone here before finally grabbing her and taking her back to its hellish love nest. Or maybe it wanted to consume her flesh in some bizarre sexual rite! The possibilities were endless, but one thing was for sure: if she stayed, that thing would kill Xander and everyone else around her. She looked down at the young man with his rifle still intently shooting away at it, his bullet ineffectually striking its hairy flesh. She couldn't let them get hurt. She couldn't let him get hurt. She suddenly came to a decision.
"Yaaahhhhh!" Cordelia screamed as she ran away. She left the relative safety of the jumbles of crates and began to run for the maze of warehouses. Xander wondered what was going on as the monster veered off his vector towards their position. Then he looked back to see Cordelia leading it away from them.
"Cordelia!" Xander screamed after her. He started to get up and charge after her but Oz intervened.
"It's okay, man. Buffy needs you out there. I'll go get her. I can't believe I just said that!" But Oz was already racing for his van and starting it up. He put it into gear and drove after the fleeing woman and her demonic pursuer.
"It's okay, Xander. Oz will get her back," Willow reassured him. "No, Giles! Put that symbol over there!"
Xander watched after Cordelia and prayed that Willow was right.
* * *
'I can't believe I'm doing this,' Oz thought to himself. His van quickly pulled ahead of the monster pursuing Cordelia but it was gaining fast on her. Oz pulled the van up beside her as she ran and yelled for her to get in. She tried the passenger door but it wouldn't open.
"It's locked, you moron! I'm gonna die cause you locked your trashy piece of crap van!" Oz reached over, accidently veering the van into a pile of trash as he unlocked the door. He corrected himself and pulled up along side Cordelia again. She needed no urging this time and quickly opened the door and jumped inside.
"Thank you, Oz. NOW GO, GO, GO!"
Oz gunned the engine but he noticed that the demon was keeping up and even gaining on them. Oz looked in the rearview mirror and stared at the monster as it closed the distance.
"Say, Cordelia. You notice anything weird about that monster following us, besides the fact that it wants you?"
"What do you-? Watch where you're going!"
"I'm just saying that it looks a little familiar," as he swerved around a large pile of boxes. "Hey, I know! It looks just like that big monster in 'The Muppet Movie.' You know? The hairy one in the rags with the big orange nose? The one from the used car lot. The one that follows them to Hollywood!"
"Oz, you're losing it! Ahhhh!" In front of them the maze of abandoned storage buildings suddenly came stop. They hit a dead end of giant crates stacked haphazardly across the road. Behind them, the monster came running up fast. Oz but the van in reverse and tried to ram the creature but it only caught the vehicle by the rubber coated bumber, and lifted the rear wheels off the ground.
"Pretty woman!" it yelled at them, salivating as it looked over at Cordelia. The young girl panicked suddenly and opened her passenger door, no thoughts of self-sacrifice this time, just sheer terror.
"Cordelia! Come back!" Oz called after her. The demon dropped the van and ran to catch her. "Aarrr! What I wouldn't give to turn into a werewolf right now!" He grabbed up a tire iron from the back of the van and pursued them as well. 'I'm trying to save the girlfriend of the guy who my girlfriend still has the hots for! How twisted is that?!'
When he found them, the monster had a hold of Cordelia's arm and was trying to drag her back in the direction of the pier. Oz wasted no time on witty remarks or dialogue and clubbed the creature over the back of the head with the tire iron. He didn't expect much reaction after seeing it shrug off Xander's explosives and bullets. Needless to say he was surprised to see the demon let Cordelia go and cower from Oz's blow.
"No! Iron!" the creature screamed out, holding the back of it's head. Oz gave the beast no quarter and struck out again. It tried to shield itself from his blows but each time he connected, the demon seemed to weaken more. In the end, Oz was reducing the creature's cranium to a giant red pulp before Cordelia reached out her hand to stop him. The demon lay unmoving and Oz was breathing heavily from his exertions.
"Thank you, Oz," Cordelia graciously thanked him.
"Well, us sidekicks of sidekicks gotta stick together, you know?"
* * *
"I think that's it, Giles," Willow informed him as he put the final mark on the circle of power he had drawn on the ground in front of her.
"Well then, let's begin the incantation." She showed him the screen and he began to speak words of the spell in Latin, standing in the circle as he did so. As he uttered the words, the lines of the circle began to glow and pulsate in time with the mystic portal across the way at the end of the dock. As he chanted each new phrase, the portal began to shimmer more and more until it no longer seemed to have the same solidity that it had possessed originally.
Xander watched as Buffy and Max dispatched with the final demon on the pier. Xander's own kill count had been respectedly high as the spent shell casings and empty clips at his feet could attest, but he had graciously left the final monster for the Slayer to kill in grand style.
He turned as Oz and Willow drove up and got out. He dropped his rifle and ran to her side. She was still shaking when Xander grabbed her up and held her closely to him. After a moment he looked into her eyes and they shared a wordless moment.
"That was one of the stupidest and bravest things I've ever seen!" Xander berated her, but his smiling face showed his true feelings about her courage and what she had tried to do. He hugged her to him again and Cordelia held him tightly.
Out on the docks, Buffy finished off the last demon. No others had tried to come through the portal since Xander's last explosive package of love, but she knew that it would only be a matter of time. Then, thankfully, the portal began to waver and shimmer, and finally it dissolved altogether. From off near the head of dock where she had left everyone, she could see Gile's triumphantly jumping about and hugging Willow. She looked up into the sky to watch Eric as he dove and swept through the air, barely fending off the attacks of the last two demons.
"Eric," she whispered as Max came to stand beside her and gaze up at his master.
* * *
"Buffy," Eric whispered behind his mask as he despaired of winning the battle. It was all he could do to evade Mimic's energy blasts and sword attacks. Hawk-Ra's own blade had damaged his armor, the acid coating his sword eating away at chunks of it, but Eric had managed to keep himself intact. So far at least.
'I'm running out of strength,' he admitted to himself. 'Battling three demon lords, and killing one of them has left me weakened. They'll eventually bring me down in the end. It's assured. I can't defeat Mimic, and Buffy won't be able to me.' Hirune had been the weakest of the bunch, which was why he had left him for Max while drawing away the three most powerful. Hirune couldn't even fly. Xamot had been the next in terms of strength, and so Eric had dispatched him, hoping to take as many of them with him as possible. But Mimic and Hawk-Ra were certainly the most dangerous. Mimic's own power was derived from copying Eric's every expenditure of magic strength. His own attacks would be met with equal power so there was no way that he would be able to defeat Mimic. It was a lost cause. And if only he could have an uninterrupted moment to gather his energies, he could probably destroy Hawk-Ra. But with first Xamot and then Mimic constantly bombarding him with blasts, there was no time for concentration, only survival.
Eric let loose with his own blast, striking out at Mimic. The demon's green shield surrounding him absorbed the beams of energy and he responded in kind, weakening Eric's own shield further.
'Everytime I use a new attack, he counters with exactly the same. When I first weilded a sword, he too was limited to the sword. It wasn't until I used my own energy blasts to soften Xamot for the kill that Mimic began to use them on me. Even now, every blast of mine is countered with one of his own. He can use the energy when he chooses, but every action I take must be answered with the same exact attack! My God! I can do this! I can beat them! But it will come at a high price... I have to do this. For Buffy. She must survive. Another will have take the burden of stopping Mortain. This is for Buffy.'
Abruptly, Eric ceased his wild evasions and floated stock still in the air. The green force field around him, normally invisible unless defending against attacks, now began to show itself burning brighter and brighter. Hawk-Ra began to dive towards him until he noticed that Mimic had also stopped and was doing the same thing. The bird creature could feel the heat and destructive power coming off the two of them, and a high pitched whine began to fill the air. Hawk-Ra could see the struggles of fear from Mimic within his force bubble. Whatever he was doing was not by his will and the buildup to whatever it was they were doing was increasing.
From the ground below, Buffy looked up and from somewhere deep inside of her, she could tell what he was doing. His energies and those of the demon copying him were building up towards a giant destructive blast. She was certain that between the two of them, the blast would rival a small nuclear weapon in sheer destructive potential. He would contain the blast of course but Hawk-Ra would be engulfed in it, destroying the bird man. As for Eric and Mimic, they would be consumed by there own energies as they released their wave of annihilation. Eric had outsmarted the equally powerful Mimic, but he would pay for the victory over his enemies with his life.
She searched around the fallen bodies of the dead demons until she discovered what she was looking for. She picked up the long spear one of the demons had tried to run her through with and hefted it in her hand. She stared up at two glowing balls of energy and the hawk demon near them.
'Please,' she prayed silently. 'Please help me. Eric said that I have a power within me that's hiding itself until the right time. Well I'm here to say, that if you don't save that man up there, there'll never be a right time! I don't know who I'm praying to: God, some nature spirit, the Slayer Goddess, or what. All I know is that we need him! We need him to stop Mortain! So, help me! Just this once! I just need a little of it! You know that I'm right! Help me!'
Buffy felt the brush of something huge against her mind. She didn't know if it was God or something else, she only knew it was big and it was benevolent. It was reaching deep inside of her, opening her up. From within the dark depths of her soul she felt the unseen force uncover something, like a plumber opening up a closed and rusty valve. Suddenly she felt the rush of power through her body and spirit and she knew she had the strength to do what she needed. She channeled all the power that now flowed through her viens into the spear she held in her hands and it began to glow. She took careful aim at the demon wearing Eric's armor, the glowing green sphere glowing brighter with every moment. In another few seconds it would be too late for Eric, and he would be consumed by the destructive energies he and the demon were unleashing. She threw the spear with all her strength, and it sped through the sky towards its target like a missile. The helpless Mimic, compelled by its nature to copy its enemy could do nothing but channel its energies into the blast that would destroy it and everything around it. It watched in horror as the glowing spear rocketed towards it. The spear broke through the barrier and burst through its chest and out its back side. A moment later, its heart destroyed by the Slayer's shaft, it exploded, the destrutive energies it had been building up dissipated with its premature death.
Eric watched as his undefeatable enemy was killed by the Slayer below and took heart. He instantly stopped his suicidal build up and instead turned his attentions to Hawk-Ra. The demon bird had been trying to desperately flee the area, but now Eric rechanneled the power he had collected. Instead of a giant explosion as he had originally intended, he focused it into a single atomizing blast that blossomed from his hands and streaked across the distance to the fleeing demon. The bird creature screamed in agony as the beam disintegrated its very body and essence leaving nothing behind in its wake.
Slowly, weakly, Eric floated down to land on the dock. Max rushed over to him barking frantically, his tail wagging. Buffy was right behind him rushing into Eric's arms as his armor and sword disappeared. He inhaled deeply the strawberry scent of her hair and thanked god he had the chance to hold her again.
"Buffy, I told you not to come," Eric said to her as he pulled back to look down into her eyes. She only stared back at him sternly.
"Sorry I'm late," she coyly teased him. "Now shut up and say thank you."
He touched his hand to her hair and gently caressed her cheek. "Oh, Buffy," he sighed. She couldn't help but think that his look was too sad and wistful for the occasion. She soon found out why.
They rejoined the others, arm in arm, with Max trailing behind. Eric had healed the poor beleagured dog of the wounds the cat demon had given him. Buffy had come through the battle relatively unscathed, but Eric had healed even her bumps and bruises. She thanked Xander for his help in the fight with the demon hordes but he only gave her his usual "Aw, shucks" look, glancing down and shuffling his feet. Willow and Giles had been successful in closing the portal and they were certainly pleased with themselves. Cordelia looked shaken, and Oz looked like he was just coming off an adrenaline high, though Buffy was no one to judge.
They climbed into Oz's van and drove back to the entrance where Eric had left his car. He got out with Max, and Buffy came after him.
"I'll ride back with you," Buffy informed him as she walked with him over to his car. Eric stopped as they came near to it and turned around to face her.
"I'm not going back to Sunnydale," Eric stated sadly as he looked into her eyes. She halted suddenly and stared at him in shock for a few moments. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. After all they had just gone through?
"What?" she asked him, dazed by his statement.
"Mortain's still out there. I have to find him, Buffy. It's what I have to do."
"Then I'm coming with you."
"No," he told her.
"I know what the score is, Eric. This guy's big. Vampires in Sunnydale compared to all creation? C'mon on, it's no contest!"
"Buffy, you can't come with me... It's not you destiny."
"Screw destiny! I want to be with you! This is a fight worth being apart of and I'm coming with you!"
He put his hands on her shoulders as he looked at her.
"Buffy, Buffy. You have so much ahead of you. There's so much that needs to be done that only you can do. What's the point of saving the future if there's no future left to save? Buffy, you have to stay. You can't come with me."
"Eric, I... I think I love you! Don't do this to me. Don't shut me out!"
"I was afraid this would happen," he looked ah her dejectedly. "I've screwed everything up already."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're not supposed to fall in love with anyone else, Buffy. This isn't the way it's supposed to be." He dropped his hands from her shoulder in despair and looked away from her, as if what he had to say next was too much for him to bear.
"I shouldn't tell you this. It'll mess up your destiny but, hell, it's already screwed as it is." He took a deep shuddering breath and then looked back to her. "He's coming back, Buffy," Eric spoke, the words dead on his lips as if he had forsaken all hope by uttering them. He watched as Buffy's face turned from outrage over his plans to leave, to dumbstruck shock. "You know who I'm talking about. The ring you wear on your hand, it still means something. No matter what you do, no matter what happens, know this: you two... you two are meant to be together. Carry that with you in you're heart in the days ahead. Doesn't matter if you stake him and turn him into ashes, the powers of heaven and earth will come together for you. There are some loves that are written in the stars, Buffy. Yours... is one of them." Buffy looked about in shock, reeling from Eric's sudden revelation.
"It's time for me to go." He walked slowly away from her and opened the car door. Max jumped inside and Eric looked back at her. She was staring at him with an odd look on her face; some cross between love, sadness, pity, and hope. He tried to smile for her but he couldn't find the strength in his tired and weary heart. He climbed into his car and started the engine.
As the car pulled away, Buffy was still staring after him. When he was gone she looked down and stared at the Claddagh ring on her finger, her vision already beginning to blur from the forming tears.
"Angel," she softly cried, and numbly, she turned and walked back to the waiting van and her friends.
|
|
|
|
Rave
Barbie Girl (Becca)
biscuit07
Filmtheory (Jim)
Malice (Jess)
MebbtheScribe (MichaelB)
Reset (Allie)
Shay (Marrisa)
somnambulist29 (Shea)
Stephanie Loss
Wendyness (Wendy)
Questions?Contact Us
|
|
All stories on this site have been archived with the authors' consent. Do not copy these stories for your own uses without the express consent of the author themselves. Buffy the Vampire Slayer TM and Angel TM are © UPN, WB, Fox and its related entities. All photos on the site are © UPN, Fox, Warner Bros, and/or their respective owners. No profits are being made by use of these images.
Powered with the assitance of eFiction.
|
|
|
