Title: You Forgot To Mention Hell, Horatio
Author: JR
Email: JRR42@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Status: Complete
Warnings: Nope. Not this time.
Category: Crossover with Highlander
Disclaimer: All other characters belong to their respective owners and are used without permission. This story is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights, nor is any profit being made from it.
This is what happens when you get involved with too many different fandoms.
Universe setting: For you Highlander fans, this story takes place sometime after ‘Archangel’ (sorry to all those Richie Forever people). Please forgive me for playing with the timelines of the shows, but hey, it’s fan-fic and I can do that ;-)
Thanks: As always, to Carrie, and to Marius, the oak and the ash to my birds in the forest.

Ten minutes to go and already the chamber known as the ‘Vampire Arena’ was filled to capacity. Between their own blatant curiosity and the dire warnings of what fate awaited any stragglers, there were very few of the walking-dead willing to miss the beginning of what promised to be a very exciting night.

“...there’s gotta be a thousand of us down here...”

“...heard we’re gonna become invincible...”

“...what in the hell is that *stench*?...”

“...said she’s gorgeous...”

“...doesn’t this town have a Slayer? My sire told me to stay away...”

“...heard she’s gonna finally dust that traitor, Angelus...”

Tonio listened half-heartedly as he made his way slowly to the far entrance of the room. Already filled wall to wall with cold bodies, it was difficult even for Eleni’s second in command to weave his way through the throngs that had gathered at the promise of being granted some kind of special power. As he pushed his way through a small cluster of local vampires, Tonio couldn’t help but wish that the last statement he overheard were true.

He had been bitterly disappointed when his Mistress informed him of her choice in consorts. After all, Tonio had been Eleni’s companion for over three hundred years. Even though he hadn’t seen his own reflection for centuries, Tonio knew that he was not hard on the eyes. If he had been, he was quite certain that Eleni would have dispatched him years ago -- one way or another.

Still, he was not overly concerned. Although his Mistress was beautiful, Tonio was well aware that she possessed a very limited span of attention. Eleni had either taken or turned countless lovers over the years; yet she quickly grew bored with her choices of playmates. Only Tonio proved to be the exception to the rule. After so many years of having him as her subordinate, Eleni had not only come to depend upon him, she had also grown use to his company.

More often than not, Eleni left the task of eliminating her cast-offs to Tonio, a duty that the Spanish vampire looked forward to with great relish. Knowing that she never asked any questions as to his methods, Tonio took great pleasure in dispatching her past paramours. Of course, any excuse to exercise his vast knowledge of Inquisition torture techniques was only an added bonus in his mind.

Soon, he thought to himself, his Mistress would grow tired of this…Angelus…as well. Not that it mattered. For if there was one thing he had learned in his unnaturally long existence, it was the fact that while passion quickly faded, power was the true key to happiness.

And it was power he was about to receive.

While Angelus might share her bed for a time, it was Tonio that would, in fact, be the ‘field commander’ of the Army of the Legion. In the future, as in the present, he would only answer to one person, his Mistress in all things. Not even the upstart that Eleni was about to take as consort would be in a position to usurp Tonio’s authority.

Shaking himself away from his stray thoughts, the vampire focused on the matter at hand. At the moment, his primary concern was ensuring that the ceremony that would be the source of the Army of Legion would be begin on time and without any hitches. A few more steps and Tonio would *finally* reach the vampires with whom he needed to speak. Sparing a glance down the tunnel beyond the guards, the Spaniard was glad to see that it was deserted.

“All inside, are they?” Tonio addressed the closest sentry.

“A few came in about five minutes ago, but most of them were early enough. Guess that ‘be dead or be on time’ warning got their attention,” the guard grinned evilly. After a moment, he continued. “There are a couple of our guys up top rounding up the last minute arrivals, but they should be down pretty soon.”

“Good, good,” the Spaniard murmured. “All will begin shortly. Ensure that the Mistress’s orders are followed or I’ll see that you suffer the consequences.”

All four of the guards blanched at the sadistic gleam in Tonio’s eyes. Word had already spread throughout the local community about the foreigner’s penchant for torture and cruelty. Quickly nodding their assent, Tonio glared once more to reinforce his point before heading back through the crowded room. His mistress would soon need him.

After successfully evading the other Immortal, Adam’s team was actually the first to arrive at their designated position, just a short distance from Sunnydale Hospital. To prevent premature detection of the Immortal’s presence, they were at a manhole over a hundred yards from the location of the underground arena. When the time came, it would be up to Cordelia to drive the truck the last fifty or so feet.

Climbing out of the truck, Adam waited for Amy to shift into park before approaching the car. The witch steadfastly refused to leave her vehicle, a choice for which the Immortal could hardly fault her. After all, had their positions been reversed, he would never have agreed to come this far in the first place. Even now, Adam was hard-pressed not to give into his own ‘flight’ instinct. Damn MacLeod for always getting him into these scrapes, even when the Scot was nowhere to be seen.

“Okay, ladies,” he began as the girls piled out of the car. “We have a lot to do and not much time to do it in, so I suggest we get right to it.”

“O..okay,” Willow’s voice trembled, betraying a latent case of nervousness.

“Alright then, if we read the maps correctly, we should be slightly behind those antechambers right off the main part of the Arena.”

“What if there are guards or something?” Cordelia protested, her fear getting the better of her. “What if they come after me? How do I always get messed up in these things? What was I thinking? Being May Queen isn’t enough? I have to hang out with ‘the geeks that fight yucky demons’ club? Like I need another activity picture in the yearbook...that badly.”

“Quiet!” Adam ordered in a commanding tone. “I doubt that we’ll stumble into trouble this early on. And you needn’t worry, I’ll be going in first. My presence should drive off any vampires they may be lurking around.”

“Oh, right,” Cordelia admitted. “I...uh...forgot about that.”

“Now then,” the Immortal reached into the cab of the truck and pulled out a crowbar. “So, who here wants to pull up the manhole cover? What, no volunteers? Why am I not surprised.”

Stifling a grumble, the Immortal set to work. It was precisely midnight, and things were just about to get very interesting.

On the other side of the hospital, an identical truck was slowing down to a complete stop. Providence had smiled upon Oz and Giles, as Xander happened to drive up behind them just a few blocks back. Now they were waiting for the teen to park the rental car he was driving before executing the first stage of their part of Adam’s grand scheme.

Jogging up to the truck, Xander stepped on the side-runner beneath the door in order to peer clearly through the open driver’s side window.

“Hey man, how’d it go?” Oz questioned.

“Piece of cake,” Xander replied, hoping the pair in the truck would not hear the fear-driven shaking in his voice.

“Excellent,” the Watcher commented before he reached for the door handle. “We should, however, begin.”

“Saddle ‘em up, Apone,” Xander quipped.

“Apone?” Giles questioned. “Whom or what is an ‘apone’?”

“Just...get your stuff,” the dark-haired teenager shook his head woefully. This was not the time for drawn-out explanations.

“Right,” the librarian agreed before turning to the driver of the truck. “Oz, I believe you know what to do? Wait for our signal.”

“No problem,” the young werewolf insisted. “Good luck.”

“And to you,” Giles replied, reaching for the crowbar and heavy quilt that rested on the truck’s floorboards. Nodding to Xander, the pair set off at an easy jog, counting manhole covers in the street to measure the proper distance.

They came to a stop simultaneous at the third one, having reached their ultimate destination. Tossing the dirty, thick blanket to Xander, the teen hastily refolded it before laying it precisely to one side of the iron manhole. Finding the proper end of the crowbar, the librarian carefully wedged the wrapped tip of the metal rod into the seam of the sewer cover. Wrapping the end of the crowbar in surgical tape had been Oz’s idea -- a way to muffle the distinctive sound of metal against metal in order to keep their approach as stealthy as possible.

Once the bar was in position, Giles nodded to Xander. The teen then turned around, waving his arms broadly to signal Oz to proceed. The werewolf saw the sign and put the truck into gear. Moving slowly, the blond-haired teenager drove forward toward his friends.

Timing, in this case, was everything. Forcing himself to wait, Giles held his position until the truck was only yards away from where he stood. Finally, the librarian heaved forward on the bar, levering the manhole cover upwards. Xander was there to grab the heavy slab of iron, and together they forced the cover up and over onto the waiting blanket. The sound of it falling was reduced to a ‘thud’, muffled both by the quilt and by the truck as it rambled past them.

Both Giles and Xander reached to their belts, each withdrawing a stake for protection. Unbeknownst to each other, both men were having visions of dozens of vampires pouring out of the just-opened sewer entrance, which made the uncertainty of climbing down into the tunnel more than a little daunting. If they were to fail now, all hope for defeating the Legion would be lost. Frozen in defensive crouches, the student and the librarian waited to see what, if anything, would rise up out of the hole in the ground.

After a long moment, it became apparent that their activities had gone undetected. Mutually breathing sighs of relief, both men took a moment to calm themselves from their sudden rushes of adrenaline. Once their nerves were as close to steady as they were going to get given the circumstances, Xander gave Giles a nod before heading off to assist Oz, who was struggling with a heavy length of fire hose. The librarian kept an eye on the sewer outlet until the teenagers returned with their burden.

“We all know what to do, so let’s have at it,” Giles whispered, foregoing any last minute farewells.

“Take care, Oz,” Xander whispered.

“You too. Both of you,” Oz replied just as softly.

That said, the werewolf ran back in the direction of the waiting truck, keeping his eyes on the vehicle in front of him the entire way. Knowing full good and well that he might never see either of his friends alive again, it was all Oz could do not to look back as Giles and Xander descended down into the sewer.

The steady thrum of voices echoed through the chamber at an eardrum-bursting level as the vampires waited impatiently for something to happen. They were crammed wall-to-wall in the natural cave formation. The space was, however, woefully inadequate for the actual number of vampires who had arrived for this special event. Had anyone bothered to take a tally, they would have found the final head count to be just shy of 650.

The painfully loud sound of a gong ringing brought the room to instant silence. Craning their necks – some even standing on their toes -- all eyes turned to the far entrance of the room. There was an air of excitement in the chamber as they all awaited the arrival of the vampiress, wondering if all the rumors they had heard over the past few weeks were, in fact, true.

But, to their collective disappointment, the only vampires that appeared were male. The only thing interesting about them was that they were dragging someone forcefully behind them. Two of the guards stepped away from their position by the entrance in order to clear a corridor through the impossibly thick crowd. Vampire pressed hard into vampire in order to afford the procession room to pass to their intended destination.

Finally, lead by Tonio, the group reached the stage, where the two local vampires went to work. Using the chains that had been hung from roof of the cave earlier, they locked manacles around the wrists of their captive. Pulling the iron links taut to hoops on opposite walls – they strung up their prisoner until his feet dangled inches above the ground.

“Isn’t that Angelus?” a local vampire in the crowd stage-whispered. Given the magnifying acoustics of the room, the voice carried much further than it normally would. Unfortunately, proceeded by reputation, the name ‘Angelus’ was known to many, both locals and visitors alike. Those who were unaware of the chained vampire’s past listened raptly to the cursory explanations offered by those in the know.

The volume of noise in the room rose significantly as rumors, legends, and all-out fallacies were swapped among those in attendance. Impressed by seeing such a prominent vampire so humbled and helpless, the crowd was beginning to regain some of the air of anticipation that had dissipated during the long wait. It seemed as though the night might not be a complete waste after all.

‘Thank providence for universal couplings,’ Adam thought as he connected one of their ill-gotten fire hoses to the proper valve on the water-bearing truck.

Like earthquakes and mudslides, California also frequently experienced out of control brush fires. As in many cities and towns in the State, Sunnydale had equipped its heavy tank vehicles to be of use in case of such natural disasters. Of course, if Adam’s plan ended up not working, Sunnydale would be in store for a lot worse than what Mother Nature could throw at it.

“Okay, it’s ready,” the Immortal called.

Hearing his words, Willow and Cordelia grabbed the nozzle end of the fire hose, gradually unfolding the carefully coiled heavy-duty canvas. Once they reached the open manhole cover, they lowered their burden to the ground. It was only then that the Immortal started the built-in compressor that would force the water from the tank of the truck.

All they could do now was wait for the other team’s signal.

‘They’ll be all right. They’ll be all right,’ Oz chanted to himself as he waited for *any* sign that his two teammates had not just become vampire cocktails.

Determined not to just sit and stare at the manhole, the werewolf forced himself to keep busy while his friends were facing the unknown. Staggering under the weight of the second fire hose, the teenager tugged it halfway to the open sewer outlet. That finished, he returned to the truck in order to start the compressor. As he continued to work, Oz kept a close eye on the manhole.

It might have interested some to know that while Oz appeared cool, calm and collected to anyone who happened to be walking by at that moment, in truth, he was scared out of his mind. Surely he should have seen or heard from either Giles or Xander by that point. He tried not to think about the fact that Adam had designed this part of the plan with a backup in the event of a worst-case scenario, because if it did come down to that, the fate of the world would rest solely upon Oz’s slender shoulders.

He didn’t want that kind of pressure in his life.

As it was, the logical, practical part of the teenager’s mind was already losing ground to the fear-driven, ‘oh shit!’ portion of his brain. The seconds seemed to stretch into hours as they ticked away with infuriating slowness. It was definitely taking *way* too long.

Catching a flicker of brightness out of the corner of his eye, Oz whirled around to witness one of the most joyous events of his entire young life. For rising steadily out of the sewer was Xander, decked out in full fireman regalia. The dark-haired teen waved once, the ‘all-clear’ signal that they had established earlier in the evening. Releasing a long breath that he was not aware that he had been holding, Oz offered up a prayer of relief, not only that his friends were alive and well for the moment, but for their continued safety as the events of the evening started underway.

Xander continued up and out of the manhole, jogging over to retrieve the nozzle-end of the fire hose before descending once again into the sewers. Only seconds later, Oz felt a slight slug tug on the hose. Taking his queue, he fired up the truck’s compressor, wincing at the loud, steady thrum the machine made as it pumped the thick, viscous liquid held in the tank through the connected fire hose.

Stifling another silent prayer to any force of good willing to listen, the werewolf headed towards the cab of the truck. Reaching for the CB radio, he pressed his thumb down twice on the talk-bar, sending word to the other team that his group had, so far, been successful. He was answered by a similar reply, thankfully letting him know that everything was go with Willow’s group as well.

Despite the fact that the major portion of Oz’s job for the evening was finished, the werewolf was more anxious than ever. He was on his own now, with no backup in sight. All he had to do from this point on was keep an eye out for any vampires that might attempt to halt the flow of the deadly liquid being pumped out of the tanker truck.

For some insane reason, Oz found himself wishing that *he* could descend down into the tunnels as well. At least there, he would not know the terrible sense of loneliness that was overwhelming him at that moment.




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