FIC: Hellmouth Heroes (44/?)
The First smiled as he hovered over the house of the former Ms. French. He could hear the oblivious family happily talking and going about their business, but soon that would change. He concentrated, envisaging the dormant eggs in the house’s basement, and using his ambient energy to ignite them. His smile widened as the family’s chatter turned to screams as the Praying Mantis demons awoke and started through the house, ripping apart its inhabitants. The First turned to his remaining subordinate. “When they’ve finished in here, take them and the Gavok box and go to the Slayer’s headquarters. It’s time for the Slayer to learn just what forces are arrayed against her.”
* * *
“Ah, it’s good to see you all,” Giles stuck his hands in his pockets as the last of the newcomers entered the shop. “Thank you all for coming here. The threat facing us is far beyond anything we’ve faced before and we need to draw together a co-ordinated plan to deal with it.”
”What are you saying, Giles?” challenged Wood.
“The First Evil is an unique being that predates demons, Old Ones, and even the gods themselves. It is older than the written word and transcends all realities and dimensions, it is said to have been present at the universe’s birth.” Giles cast Wesley a look. “ Few have heard of it and even fewer believed it true, until recently. Fortunately it cannot yet affect the world on a physical level. Its power lies in its ability to deceive, torment and manipulate others. It can take the form of any person who has died. The First has a deep understanding of human nature it uses to copy the thoughts and mannerisms of all human beings who have died. It uses the knowledge to drive others to madness and such acts as murder and suicide.” Giles paused, lost in the memories of the First’s harrowing visit with him. Then he shook himself and continued. “However, although it is incorporeal, it has many minions that it’ll use against us-.”
”Those Harbringers Faith and Kennedy saw?” Xander queried.
“Amongst others,” Giles agreed. “But those are the least of them. However it does have armies, and we cannot afford to be alone and vulnerable. There is strength in numbers. Virginia.” Giles looked towards the red-haired heiress. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to open up your boarding house to those potentials and Watchers who are coming here?”
“Um, sure, I guess,” Ginny nodded.
”Thank you,” Giles smiled. “Robin, would you please take over the training of the potentials we’re gathering here?”
“And who takes care of Kennedy?”
Giles blinked at Wood’s hostile tone. “We all do.”
”She’s my Slayer, I’d like to supervise her.” Robin snapped.
Giles took a breath then opened his mouth to retort before clamping it shut. Of course, it appeared he wasn’t the only person who’d been visited by the First. “As you wish,” he grated before glancing towards Mr. Zabuto and his charges. It was bloody irritating to be spoken to in such a manner, but confronting Wood would possibly only feed into his ill feelings. “Sam, you said that Kendra is fully conversant in demonology, mythology, and occultism?”
“That she is,” Sam gave the dark-skinned beauty a fond look.
“Excellent,” Giles looked towards the young woman. “I was wondering if you’d run the classes for the potentials?”
“I’d be honoured Mr. Giles,” Kendra preened proudly.
“Excellent,” Giles looked towards Scott. “Your gym won’t be open for business for another month won’t it?”
“Xander and Gunn’s crew have just finished re-furbishing it, but I haven’t got the equipment in or the publicity stuff done yet,” Scott replied.
”In that case I’d like to make you an offer,” Giles said as he organised his thoughts. “I’ll hire your place as a training facility for fifteen hundred dollars a week. In the morning from half nine to half twelve, Kendra will use the dojo to teach the potentials the academic side of Slaying, while you would teach them martial arts from two to five.”
Scott stared at him. “How many girls?”
”These five and however many we can find,” Giles replied.
“Have any Watchers been in touch?” asked Willow.
“My father has a trio of girls up in his place in the Highlands,” Wesley broke in. “And Giles’ protégé, Robson has called from his place in Austria.”
“My guardian has called from the east coast,” Wood added. “He has two potentials of his own.”
”Sounds good to me,” Scott nodded. “It’ll give me chance to organise everything just right anyway.”
”That’s just fine,” Giles looked around. “Now as to dealing with the First, I first propose to putting our heads in a think-tank that consists of myself, Wesley, Wood, Mr. Zabuto, and Doyle to research potential methods of dealing with the First, meanwhile, as the First brings with it an added level of danger, only those with the strength to match a Slayer should patrol until we’ve gotten a firm course of action.”
”What are you saying exactly?” Kate demanded.
“I’m saying that until we know exactly what we’re doing, patrolling should be limited to Faith, Kennedy, Gunn, Theresa, Devon, Gunn, and Cordelia, the rest of us concentrating on securing our own bases.” Giles swallowed as a low mutter built up. “At this moment, Faith, Gunn, and Cordelia are out patrolling in one group, as are Kennedy, Devon, and Theresa in another.”
“Wait!” Xander half-rose out of his chair, eyes shining in outrage. “You mean, you sent Faith out there without me?”
Giles sighed, his head beginning to throb. This was going to be a long meeting.
* * *
Faith looked left and right as she stalked through Sunnydale’s darkened streets, Cordelia and Gunn flanking her. She hated to admit it but last night’s visit from the First had shaken her up. She knew it hadn’t really been her mom, but still the words echoed in her head.
”You are the Slayer?” a voice boomed out of the darkness. “I expected a mighty warrior, not a child. My master said I would face a challenge, you are no challenge.”
Faith spun around to face the speaker and swallowed an icy finger stroking up and down her spine at the immensity facing her. The almost eight foot tall speaker had a hulking frame with basketball-sized shoulders and a vault-thick chest, its body covered entirely by craggy orange stone, its hands the size of spades. A trio of vicious-looking spikes jutted out of each shoulder and a rhino-like horn protruded from the centre of its forehead, between its flashing blood-red eyes, its mouth was filled with jagged teeth, and its head flanked by a pair of ram’s horns. “You are no challenge to The Beast.”
The Beast suddenly bounded forward, taking Cordelia out with a clothesline to the chest that sent the former cheerleader flying into a near-by tree and catching Gunn with an overhand right to the forehead that took the black to his knees. “Shit!” Faith grunted as she snapped out a side-thrust kick to the beast’s chest that was unsurprisingly like kicking concrete. Ignoring the pain reverberating through her, Faith leapt up into a backfirst to the monster’s face. “Owww!” Skin scraped as her fist smashed uselessly into the side of the creature’s face.
And then it grabbed her by her neck, its thick, long fingers easily encircling her neck, and choke-slammed her on the sidewalk. Faith’s back arched as pain thundered through her body, only just managing to roll away from the Beast’s attempted stomp to the face, her kick to the back of the demon’s grounded foot bouncing vainly away. Faith was half-way back to her feet when an overhand right crashed into her forehead, spinning her like a top and knocking her back to her knees.
Suddenly Gunn was up and backhanding his sword into the creature’s side, the sword splintering on impact. “Shit!” the black let out a cry as he narrowly managed to duck under the Beast’s elbow to his head. Gunn tried a side-kick to the demon’s ankle, but the blow bounced ineffectually off the monster, its elbow driven into the African-American’s shoulder-blades putting him back down.
Faith leapt up into the air, catching the demon with a double-footed kick to the chest that knocked the Beast back a step. Faith twisted out of the way of a swinging haymaker as she back-flipped into a crouch. Stars exploded before her eyes when the Beast charged in and caught her with a heel to the face. The blow’s impact knocked her back on her ass, blood pouring down her face, her jaw and nose broken. Faith groaned as the demon reached down and grabbed her by her hair.
“No you don’t!” Cordelia’s sword broke on the demon’s face, and then the Beast backhanded Cordelia back into the shadows. Faith spat out blood as she rolled away from another stomp, then Gunn was lunging at the demon from behind, and catching a back-heeled kick to the mid-section that folded him in two.
Her head swimming, Faith forced herself upright, ducked a right, blocked a left that knocked her back a step on her forearm, and kicked the demon in his side, just above his left hip. Faith’s eyes widened when the demon grabbed her by the ankle, the demon’s fingers digging deep into her bone. “Oh crap!” Faith shrieked when the demon flung her into the air, her flight only ended by her collision with a tree. “Jesus,” Faith spat up blood as she slid down the tree. “This fight’s the most fun I’ve had that didn’t involve a lecture by Snyder.” Faith pushed up off the tree and stumbled forward, the world swimming around her, her battered fists held defiantly up. Then she stopped as she realised the Beast was nowhere to be seen. “What the fuck?” Faith looked left and right. “Yeah,” she nodded, “keep on running. Next time I’ll,” Faith winced as a wave of pain crashed over her, taking her to her knees as her vision blurred, “wear your knuckles out with my face.”
* * *
Oz sighed inwardly as the arguments continued around him. All this fighting was so uncool. His brow furrowed as he heard something, he glanced at Freddy and Jonathan but noted that his companions were too busy arguing to have noticed what he thought he’d noticed.
Rising, he hurried to the front of the shop and peered through the window. “Well that’s not good,” he swallowed. “Giles-.”
“Daniel, not now!” Giles snapped as he continued arguing with Wesley and Wood.
Oz shook his head. “WE’VE GOT TROUBLE!”
Everything stopped at his unaccustomed bellow, everyone spinning towards him. “Good lord,” Giles hurried over and peered out to see the dozen or so She-Mantis demons arrayed there. “Ms. French’s off-spring.”
A skittering noise had Oz turning to the right. “What’s that?” His eyes widened as he saw a midnight-black spider the size of a fist clambering nimbly up the glass door.
”A spider demon!” Giles let out an anguished cry. “Xander! Jonathan! Get the weapons out of the storeroom!”
* * *
“On it!” Xander hurried into the storeroom, hand reaching for the light.
And then Jonathan crashed into his back, knocking the two of them onto the ground. “Hey!” he let out a cry that turned into a croak when he registered the monster looming over them, its mandibles lashing the air where their heads have been. “Oh boy,” he shuddered as he reached for a battle-axe propped against the far wall. “There’s a flashback to my virginity I didn’t need.”
”What?” Jonathan looked blankly at him.
”Never mind.” Xander reached for the axe then dived forward when a spider demon leapt at his head, grabbing the axe, twisting at the waist to drive the axe’s blade through the spider demon as it hit the wall. At the same moment Jonathan reached over him, grabbed a spear and thrust it up and through the Mantis’ demon’s chin and up through the top of its head. Xander pulled his axe back and through another spider crawling across the floor.
Wesley appeared at the door. “What’s keeping -.” The Watcher’s face fell. “Oh good lord, here too!” The Englishman rushed in, grabbed an armful of weapons and backed out. “You two keep fighting here, the rest of us will deal with the front.”
“As a plan,” Xander and Jonathan climbed to their feet, their eyes fixed on the deluge of spider demons skittering into the storeroom, “this really, really sucks.”
* * *
“Giles!”
“Thank you!” Giles caught a flung sabre out of the air. “Jenny! They’re getting in through the door-.”
”Consider it sealed!” his girl-friend shouted back. “Willow, come with me, keep the rest off my back!”
A fireball shot past his ear en-route to obliterating a spider demon about to leap off one of the bookcases. “Oh bloody hell,” Giles grunted as the window exploded inwards, the demons pouring in. Any sort of holding action was now out of the question.
”Down Giles!”
Giles hit the floor at Pike’s shout, the former bad boy’s shotgun booming out to take apart two of the mantis demons as they crawled through the window, the monsters exploding into pieces. Giles’ eyes widened as he saw one of the spider demons scurrying towards him. “Oh no you bloody don’t!” His sword came up and then down, blood spurting from the demon as he impaled it to the floor.
A hand grabbed hold of him by his collar and pulled him to his feet, he glanced over his shoulder and nodded at the powerfully-built youth stood behind him. “Thanks Owen!”
”Duck!”
Giles instinctively obeyed, bobbing under a Mantis’ clawed mandible before coming back up and backhand slashing the front of the monster’s face off. Blood showered him as the beast went crazy, slashing at him as he writhed left and right then thrust his blade up and through the monster’s neck. The creature let out a shocked squawk and fell on its back, mandibles thrashing wildly as Owen leapt forward and hacked it to pieces with a few savage axe swings.
“Oh my poor shop.” Realising the battle was over, Giles stared mournfully around his wrecked business. Several of the overturned bookshelves were on fire thanks to Michael’s fireballs, glass from the windows and door covered the ground, while demon gunk splattered the walls and the floor. “Oh my poor shop.”
“Faith!” Giles looked over his shoulder to his fellow Watcher and then followed his eyes to the Slayer, eyes widening at the brunette beauty’s battered condition, Gunn and Cordelia barely looking better. Giles started forward then stepped back as Wesley rushed past him to embrace Faith, a cold bitterness enveloping him. Try as he might, he couldn’t help but think the First was right, he’d lost his Slayer and Faith wasn’t and would never be his.
“Let’s get the clean-up started.”
Giles forced a nod at Jenny’s soft voice in his ear. “Yes,” he wearily replied. “That sounds like a very good idea.”
* * *
“Yeah,” Faith jabbed a finger at the engraving, “that’s the thing that attacked us, he’s a real ugly fucker. Who is he anyway?”
“Oh good lord.” Faith uneasily noted that Wes had a drawn look to his face and Giles didn’t look much better, and she didn’t think it was just because they’d spent all night fixing up the book store and trying to research the monster who’d ambushed her, Cordelia, and Gunn. Well that was what the rest of them had done, mostly she’d spent the time bleeding. Man that Beast packed a hell of a punch. “Oh dear.”
”Not exactly filling us with sunny confidence,” Doyle jauntily commented.
”Yes,” Wesley looked up. “I’m afraid it’s not good news.”
“Never is,” Gunn grunted.
“As you said,” Giles carried on for Wesley, “the creature was called The Beast. Its origins date from the dawn of time-.”
”As old as The First?” queried Jonathan.
”Not quite,” Wesley replied, “but still exceptionally old. Something like a handful of generations later. It was the champion for an Old One called Illyria, a general of its armies. In all the centuries it fought for its master, it was never defeated, slaughtering demons, humans, vampires alike for its master. Only the Old Ones themselves could stand before it. Fortunately when the Old Ones fell, it disappeared with its master.” Wesley paused. “Until now.”
“Sounds like a real party animal,” Faith muttered. “If you like parties filled with decapitation and dismemberment.”
Wesley looked up at her. “Quite. As you know, the Beast is massively strong and incredibly powerful, almost invulnerable to attack.”
“I remember a monster called the Judge, that was supposed to be invincible too.” Everyone turned to a grim-faced Xander. “Judge go boom.”
“Modern technology could well provide a solution,” Giles agreed. “How I’d also like Willow to investigate a possible enchantment to deal with it.” Giles paused. “However worrying the Beast is, we also have problems to deal with.”
”Those Watchers you mentioned,” Jenny commented.
”Quite,” Giles nodded. “Wesley, you take Jonathan and Heidi to collect your father from Scotland.”
“Oh happy joy,” Wesley scowled, seeming to deflate into himself.
“I get to meet your dad, so cool!” Faith laughed.
”You have no idea,” Wesley shook his head and shuddered. “You and my father on the same continent, this really is the end of the world.”
“Xander, could you take Oz and Pike, and go and get Robson from Austria?”
”I get to go to a foreign country!” Xander beamed. “Cool!”
“Yes, I’m sure the Austrian embassy will thank us, but I’ll endeavour to struggle on,” Giles snarked before glancing towards Wood. “I’d like you to take Freddy and Alana to the east coast to collect Crowley and his potentials.”
Wood looked towards Kennedy. “My-.”
”Oh bloody hell,” Giles interrupted with a growl. “Crowley brought you up. At least have the decency to go and get him.”
Wood scowled but nodded. “Okay, okay.”