FIC: Hellmouth Heroes (45/?)
FIC: Hellmouth Heroes (45/?)
“We’ve attempted an invasion of Sunnydale before, but were rebuffed,” growled the Scourge’s leader. “What makes this time different?”
Skip stared disdainfully at his interrogator. What made this time different was these idiots wouldn’t be running the show. However, it would be more than a little undiplomatic to say so. “The difference is, you won’t be alone.”
“Oh yes?” sniffed the Scourge leader. “And who might these fellow warriors be? The Scourge will not fight alongside just anyone!”
In actual fact they’d fight exactly with whoever they were told to do, especially if Skip tore off the head of the idiot stood before him. “The Vahrall and the Sisterhood of Jhe.”
“Oh that’s different,” a half-smile flickered across the Scourge leader’s face even as his men growled approval in the background. “They’re real warriors, true believers.”
True idiots. Skip smiled smoothly. “Then you’re in.”
“We’re in,” the leader of the Scourge agreed.
* * *
A Village Just Outside Graz, Austria
Shadows clung to the forested landscape outside the 18th century style, whitewashed cottage. “You’re sure?”
“Who did I go as?”
“Okay, okay,” Xander peered into the darkness. He didn’t see the Bringers that Oz claimed were converging on the mile and a half away house, but then he didn’t have Wolverine’s eyes.
“Shame we couldn’t bring weapons with us,” Pike commented.
“Not helping,” Xander grated. According to Giles, the Council had had diplomatic arrangements that allowed Watchers to bring whatever weapons they deemed necessary into any country in the world. Unfortunately that courtesy didn’t extend to their rag-tag band of warriors. Except….
Xander glanced towards Pike, struggling to form his glimmer of an idea into a plan. “You can summons your shotgun by will right?” Pike nodded. “Okay here’s what we’re going to do.” Xander said as he opened the SUV’s sun roof. “We might not have weapons in here, but Robson’s a Watcher, so he’ll have weapons in the house. Oliver, stick your head through the sun-roof, and shoot the Bringers if you see any, Oz, grab his legs and hold him steady. I’ll drive us to the house.” Xander shook his head at the others’ incredulous looks. “Have either of you got a better idea?” He smirked when neither answered. “Thought so.”
He let the handbrake off and rammed his foot on the accelerator, the car screeching forward, gravel flying from under its tyres as Pike’s shotgun began firing. Xander stayed on the accelerator until the cottage was a few hundred feet away, then rammed on the brake, spinning the wheel, and yanking on the handbrake as the car screamed to a halt, smoke coming up from his brakes as the car screeched to a halt bare feet from the front of the house.
“That was exhilarating,” Oz commented.
”Get many of the Bringers?” Xander looked up at Pike.
“Perhaps five,” Pike replied as he ducked his head back inside the car.
“How many are still out there?” Xander asked Oz.
”Twenty or thirty,” Oz tersely replied. “Oh and they’re coming in at a run.”
Xander grimaced. Three experienced fighters and a bunch of ill-equipped novices against a small army of fanatics was not good. But at least they had the house. “Get inside fast, and don’t bother knocking.”
”Wasn’t planning on,” Pike leapt out of the car and landed on the stone step leading up to the cottage’s door, then bounced off the step and through the door, wood splintering under the super-powered impact.
A portly, red-faced man of about forty years of age burst into the lamp-lit hallway, wielding a fireplace poker that Xander quickly snatched from him. The man’s fist clenched then dropped as his eyes widened. “You’re Mr. Harris, Giles sent me a photo!”
”I didn’t know I was in his family album. I find that,” Xander shuddered, “disturbing.” He sobered. “Look we’re about two minutes ahead of an army of Bringers here to kill your Potentials.”
“Bringers!” the man’s eyes widened. “Are you-.”
“Sure?” Xander shook his head. “We’ve done this dance before. We’re sure, and we don’t have time to discuss it.” He glanced approvingly at Pike as the mechanic knocked over the hallway desk and placed it in front of the door. “Where are the weapons and the potentials?”
”I keep the weapons in a chest under the stairs,” the Watcher passed him a key. “The girls are-.”
”What is happening Mr. Robson?”
Xander glanced over his shoulder to see a bed shorts and t-shirt clad red-head stood half-way up the stairs, several girls stood behind her. “Dagmar, these are,” Robson stepped towards the steps, “these are friends. They’ve come to help us, we need to get a move on. Get dressed and come down.”
* * *
Highlands, Scotland
Wesley felt his palms moisten as he stared at the sandblasted cottage with a thatched roof sat at the bottom of a hill, the wind rocking their SUV as they came to a halt some one hundred yards from the cottage. It was an inoffensive-looking place, but Wesley couldn’t help but remember the bleak ‘holidays’ he’d spent here, slaving over textbooks and struggling with his training in an always vain attempt to please his father.
“Are we going to get out or just sit here?”
Wesley started at Heidi’s impatient voice. “Yes of course,” he flushed in embarrassment as he hurriedly unfastened his seatbelt and joined the others in climbing out, dialling his cell as he did so.
“Yes!”
Wesley winced at his father’s bark. “Father, we’ve just arrived outside, we’ll be at the door in the minute.”
”We?” Roger snorted. “Oh yes, of course you’ll have brought some of your unconventional assistance with you.”
Wesley sighed as he hung up and glanced at his companions. “I apologise in advance.” The young couple exchanged bemused looks. “You’ll understand in a minute.”
The door opened as he reached it, his bearded father stood there, dressed in a woollen sweater and dark pants, energy bristling in his bearded frame. “So you’re here!” his father barked. “I expected you last night!”
“Hello father,” Wesley ignored his father’s criticism not exactly with the ease of long practice but with the weary effort of one long used to it. “I trust you have your Potentials ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”
”Of course,” his father shot him a withering look for even questioning him. “And who are your companions?”
Wesley noticed his father’s disinterested tone but answered anyway. “This is Jonathan and Heidi.”
He opened his mouth to continue talking about his companions’ varying abilities, but his father interrupted. “Ah the Slayer’s former lover,” Roger shook his head disapprovingly, but then it seemed he did everything disapprovingly, “I can’t decide if I find the idea of a Slayer with a lover or the thought of betraying a lover more disgusting.”
”Hey!” Heidi snapped, eyes shining with outrage. “You don’t -.”
”Ah, your Potentials are here,” Wesley desperately interrupted, relieved when a quartet of teen girls hurried into the hallway. “And they are?”
“Molly,” Roger pointed towards a freckled red-haired, pig-tailed girl of around sixteen, “Annabelle,” Roger glanced towards a tall, copper-haired girl with an air of smugness. “Nora,” a short black-haired girl, “and Dianne.” The last girl was a short brunette of apparently Eurasian descent with bobbed hair and captivating eyes. “This is my son, and Watcher to the current Slayer, a warrior of formidable reputation, despite her upbringing.”
“You have a son?” Molly gasped in a cockney voice.
“Amazing isn’t it,” Wesley dryly commented. “Father, why don’t you get everyone’s bags in the car, I need to use the toilet.”
* * *
A Village Outside Graz, Austria
“I’ve got the arsenal out!” Oz shouted.
Xander strode over to the under-stairs and peered into the illuminated storage space. There were half a dozen crossbows, two hand axes, a studded mace, and a few short swords, a far cry from the arsenal that lay under the gang’s gym. All the way back in Sunnydale. “We wouldn’t get to the car and out before the Bringers got here would we?” Oz shook his head. Xander sighed. “That’s what I figured.” Xander started pulling weapons. “Okay, you take one of the crossbows, and give the rest to the potentials, give each one of the potentials a dagger too. I want you in the study, two in the lounge with Robson, two in the dining room, and one, the best archer of the bunch, in the kitchen, I’ll take the doorway to the hallway’s rear.” Xander leaned down and picked up the studded mace. “I’ll take this too.”
Seconds crept by as Xander stood by the half wood, half glass door, sweat beading on his forehead. He started slightly as the top half of the door, the glass half, shattered and a hand slithered in, feeling for the door handle. Xander grinned as he grabbed the wrist with his free hand and pulled the interloper into the door, his mace back-handing up and into the Bringer’s skull.
The Bringer fell away with a grunt, but another crashed in and through the door, Xander’s foot slamming into the demon’s crotch, and then into the back of the demon’s head as he doubled up. A third started through the door, but stumbled over the bodies crumpled on the threshold and into Xander’s up swinging mace, the Bringer’s face disappearing in a crimson spray.
“Aaaaaaah!” Xander’s blood chilled at the scream from the kitchen to his left. He turned his head towards the kitchen, then hissed in pain when a blade slashed down and across his right arm as another Bringer burst through the entrance. Teeth gritted against the pain, he ducked under the Bringer’s follow-up slash at his face while grabbing the demon behind his knee and yanking him from his feet. Xander’s mace swung down and through the creature’s face before straightening and hurrying through to the now ominously silent kitchen.
* * *
New York City, Manhattan
Wood stared up at the austere-looking 18th century style, red-bricked rowhouse he’d been brought up in after his mother’s demise. He remembered Bernard’s ceaseless academic lessons and unstintingly harsh training sessions, schooling him both in the arcane and combat disciplines., Only now he recognised the man’s almost military-upbringing as a reaction to his mother’s death, a determination to ensure that he was best possibly prepared for the demons he might fight.
Although his guardian couldn’t have dreamed what would happen. Wood felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. He profoundly loved the old man, but he hadn’t been back since just before his posting to Sunnydale, and had always been a little intimidated by his mother’s Watcher, despite knowing in his heart of hearts the Englishman returned his affection.
”Are we going to go in or just look at his house? We’ve drove a long way just to look.”
Wood started at Alana’s impatient voice, then nodded. “Yes, of course.” He opened his car door, took a gusting breath, and then hurried up the house’s well-worn steps and knocked on the door.
The man who answered the door was in his early sixties, but still ramrod straight and lean, with no evidence of middle-age spread despite his years. His hair was silver grey and his face craggy from the passing of decades, but his grey eyes still gleamed sharply. “Robin!” Crowley beamed. “How thoughtful of Rupert to send you to be the one who picked me up!”
“Yes,” Wood nodded. “We’ve got the car waiting just outside, if you don’t mind, we’d like to leave immediately, get on the road as soon as possible.”
“A car?” Bernard Crowley’s hooked nose wrinkled, the elderly Watcher looked nonplussed. “I expected us to fly.”
”Yes but,” all the old feelings of inferiority came flooding back, “in the car we could bring our weapons.” Bernard stared blankly at him. “In case we reached here and you were under attack.”
“Of course,” his father nodded approvingly. “Good thinking, lad.” Bernard looked over his shoulder. “Come on girls! Hurry, hurry!”
“One of my Potentials has been Called,” he blurted out in a desperate attempt to impress the man who’d brought him up.
“Really?” Interest gleamed in the old man’s bespectacled eyes. “I wasn’t aware Lehane was dead!”
“She isn’t,” his father’s creased face looked towards, puzzlement deepening the forehead furrows. “That is to say, she died on the operating table after being shot, several times in fact, but they brought her back.”
“Ha!” his father rumbled approvingly. “This girl sounds like a fighter, I can’t wait to meet her and your girl.”
* * *
A Village Outside Graz, Austria
Xander rushed into the kitchen in time to see a crouched Bringer dragging his knife out of Fia’s throat, two other Bringers lying dead on the floor, arrows jutting from their heads. A cold rage that was part-Castle, part-Harris enveloped Xander as he rushed forward, his foot stamped down, crushing the Bringer’s knife hand under it as Xander’s right fist swung down and crashed into the Bringer’s jaw.
The demon fell into the cupboard behind it, the demon reaching across himself with his uninjured hand to grab at another cupboard door, tearing it off, and flinging it at him. The cupboard door hit him on the side, but he barely noticed it as he toe-kicked the murdering bastard full in the face.
”The next few seconds are going to be very very painful,” Xander promised as the demon’s head snapped back to crack into the cupboard behind him. “But don’t worry, you won’t feel anything after I’ve finished.” He reached down to grab the demon by the front of his robe, dragged him up, twisted at the waist, flinging him across the kitchen. The demon hit the herb and spice rack on the far wall, ripping it off its fastenings, as it fell from the wall to land on top of him.
Xander snarled as he strode over, ramming the Bringer’s own knife into the throat of one of his companions as another Bringer clambered through the window without missing a step, then he kicked the hands from under the by now on his hands and knees demon, knocking the demon back flat, and then stamped on his head. “Are you getting the message yet?” Xander asked as he grabbed the demon by the back of his neck, and pulled him up to his knees before driving a knee into the demon’s chest.
As the demon doubled back up, Xander snatched a rolling pin off the polished work bench and brought it down hard on the back of the demon’s head, smashing it down repeatedly until the creature’s head was caved in and the rolling pin slick with blood.
“Xander they’ve retreat-, oh god!” Pike stopped in the doorway. “Is she-.”
”Dead?” Xander snapped as he gave the bludgeoned corpse a final kick. “That’s what a gaping hole in the neck and a pool of blood normally means.”
”Oh god!” Robson rushed in, his eyes filled with the grief that suggested he was a Watcher that truly cared. “Fia!”
Xander stepped into the Watcher’s path. “I’m sorry for your loss, but we need to get out of here and fast, before they return in even greater loss.”
”We have to bury-.”
“No,” right now Xander didn’t care how hard he sounded, only about protecting the other girls. “You have four other girls to protect, get your stuff together, we’re leaving in five minutes.” The Watcher stared watery-eyed at him. “NOW!”
* * *
Once he’d finished, Wesley locked the house up and hurried back out to his car. “Where’s mother?”
“Your mother’s safe of course,” Roger sniffed.
Wesley quelled the little boy inside who wanted to run away at his father’s disapproving gaze, choosing instead to meet it. “I’ll need rather more than that.”
Roger blinked at his reply, cheeks flushing and moustache quivering in outrage. “Too long spent in the colonies, I shouldn’t wonder,” he grunted before nodding. “Very well, I sent your mother to my cousin’s holiday place in Toronto.” He paused and scowled. “You remember the one, the black sheep of the family, the one who disavowed all interest in the Council.”
Imagine for a moment the sort of family who considered the member of the family who had no interest in secret societies their black sheep. The mind positively boggled. “Very well,” Wesley nodded. That was as safe as any of them were likely to be in the immediate future. “In that case we need to-.”
“Go to the Cotswolds,” his father interrupted.
”Oh,” Wesley was once again thrown off balance by his father. “To visit the Deeper Well?”
His father chuckled mockingly. ”I hardly think we’ll be going sight-seeing at this time do you?”
“Oh boy,” Wesley felt his lips tug up at Jonathan’s whisper, “did we ever draw the short straw.” Wesley’s heart dropped when Jonathan suddenly raised his voice. “Say Wesley, have you told your dad about dating an American?”
“I BEG YOUR PARDON!”
That was, Wesley glared at Jonathan, nothing less than dastardly.