A nightmare called The Apocalypse

[quietkindocrazy]

This wasn’t happening... none of this was real. That’s what I kept telling myself. It’s what I wanted to believe so desperately. It almost felt like I was trapped in a nightmare, one much worse than the one Pylea had ever been. Pylea was just a distant dream compared to this hellish dream-like place. But it was all real; everything that had

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[shanshu_angel]

Connor should be here. We need Connor right now but of course, he's probably off with Cordelia because she feels safer with him.

It's better that he's not here. This is dangerous, but as I crash through the glass table, it occurs to me that without Gunn or even Lorne, we don't have our whole team and it's the entire team that always manages to resolves situations of all kinds; even apolcalypses.

I feel guilt over failing Gunn as I get up, wiping the glass off of my trenchcoat as it falls off in shards. Wesley's bullts were precise but just bounced off this Beastly Beast as if he were made of steel. He wasn't, for I had hit him, but the rock that comprised him might as well have been.

Getting up, the Beast rockets a table towards Wesley and it hits him flush and so hard that I'm worried that it might actually take him from me, from us like Gunn has been already, but I see him move and try to get the table off of himslef. As I do, one of the bullets that ricocheted off of the Beast launches towards my face, not with as much propulsion as it had when it came out of the gun, but fast enough to make me use all of my considerable speed and reflexivity to smash it away from me...

All of my speed and reflexivity. A lot of good it's doing. I can't make a dent in rock boy and if I don't...if I can't stop him, if we can't, then lots of people are going to be crushed by his monstrous hands. This isn't like any other demon that we've seen and I've seen a lot in my time. He doesn't seem to have weaknesses...

Fred fires upon him and the arrow hits him near where a heart might be but it does nothing to him and he smiles, prepared to hurt her, which raises my anger. "Fred, get out of here! I shouldn't have brought her here for this, but she's a part of the team and I'm worried about her.

Before he can attempt to hurt her, I launch myself on him with a flurry of rights and lefts that do more damage to my hands then to his face. I go low and then high, just searching for a weakness, but he blocks my next attempt and once more sends me flying...

I almost crash through the window...just a couple of more feet and I would have had a date with the pavement far below, which just pisses me off more. I notice the stake that I had brought with me for some reason. I don't know why I boguht it for a meeting with him, but let's just see if a pointy piece of wood with enough force behind it can topple this irritating giant...

[pryce_less]

I very nearly was lacerated across the nape of my neck by a massive shard that came off of the table that I crashed through. Strangely, though there was an immeasureable amount of pain from being pelted by such a heavy and jagged object when splintering, I didn't let it influence me to seek shelter...

Human nature entails that we listen to our nerves; to the impulses that the brain sends to the body both on a conscious, nerve-ending level and through chemicals that determine fight or flight, but flight was no longer an option and no only because of the obvious dangers that the Beast presented on so many levels...

Self preservation lost its meaning to me when I was abandoned after having my throat slit; though now I don't blame Angel or Fred...or Gunn God bless him and keep him warm...for that. They acted rationally then as I did.

For me, I do what's right to make people safe, but not to be a hero. I do it all for Fred...trying to leave thoughts of Lilah behind right now, I pull out the machine gun to see if it has greater effect on shattering the Beasts outer shell so that Angel could then disect the inner Beast. He tells Fred to leave and all the while, the Beast has a smirk and a guttural groan of what is no doubt pleasure. Angel is sent flying and unfortunately, Fred doesn't heed his order. She stays, only prompting me to want to fire further and with more vigor on this vile and seemingly impenetrable fiend.

I open fire. "Fred, back away in case the bullets ricochet."

I too take cover and am disheartened by the fact that these bullets...bigger, with a higher rate of force, propulsion and tension...with more of them hitting him...don't seem to topple him.

I'm not going to give up and my trigger finger is loose, but I'm starting to see the futility in fighting this thing without more knowledge of him. I'm starting to wonder if any one of us are going to make it out of here alive, but I have to make sure that Fred does.

[quietkindocrazy]

It was just too much. The Beast was just too strong for us...

My mind is going a mile a minute and I can hardly think clearly. I almost miss Wesley's voice telling me to get out of the way and barely have time to react. I scramble to find cover and when I find a safe enough spot I hear the deafening sound of the machine gun rips through my ears.

Instictively I bring my hands to my ears.

I finally look up and at first I only see smoke. Slowly I get up and wait for the smoke to clear, for the first time since the fight began, I feel a glimmer of hope. Maybe Wesley was able to do some damage... maybe, just maybe...

I guess luck wasn't in our side. As the smoke clears, I could hear the Beast sinister laugh. Dropping the cross bow, I run across the room and pick up one of Wesley's discarded guns, and aim it at the Beast again. I wasn't going to give up without a fight. Charles wouldn't have... Angel wouldn't and neighther would Wesley. So I wasn't gonna.

I blinked a few times as the dust settled and the Beast came into a clear view and fired until I emptied the clip. Before I knew it, I was on dodging a wooden plank. I was able to get out of the way, but it still shattered the window behind me sending a million tiny pieces of glass wood down on me. I crouched down and coverd my head and face, letting my back take the brunt of it, and I asked myself, 'How can we stop it?'

[shanshu_angel]

When Fred picked up a gun and started to fire, I worried where this was going. The Beast hadn't actually perpetuated any bviolence against Fred yet, but this thing was savage, seemingly impenetrable and I'm certain that moralistics when it comes to the fairer sex aren't something that he holds a standard about.

Wesley's bullets were bouncing off of him and spraying other things, primarily, us...it was us that were threatened to be more injured by the bullets. I mean, I am not going to be severely offended by a bullet piercing my skin, but it doesn't tickle. To the Beast, the bullets almost give him more strength.

Fred was in harms way, no doubt about it. The Beast looked at her, his guttural moan of pleasure at being shot shining through as he looked at Fred.

It was time for me to step up the game while he was distracted with the gunfire. I just needed an opening where I wouldn't be shot. Wesley was ready to try to pulverize him with the machine gun and I wanted to tell him to aim for the head and see if that worked, but it didn't look like it would. There seem to be no weaknesses on this thing, except that his throat has to be vulnerable.

Maybe Wesley could hit his throat, but while he was reloading and as the beast took steps towards Fred, it was definitely my time. It was up to me.

I launched myself into the air, sure to catch him off guard, but even though it seemed like he was going towards Fred, who was protecting herself from glass covering her...he caught me at the last minute. The stake held tightly in my hand, plowed into him, but missed his throat and caught his rocky chest.

He gripped me by the throat, smiling. Wesley stopped firing with me near, and as I looked at the Beast, his smile really pissed me off, yet I couldn't move and the grip was incredible.

[pryce_less]

When Fred uttered a scream, My intensity to put this rock-monster down increased.

She had moved when I had asked her to, which surprised me a bit considering that Fred had become a lot stronger, and I wondered if she had become slightly more meek, as she was after Pylea, because Gunn had died.

I stopped wondering and readied to fire, looking for an opening, some weakness in this hideous monster's shell. When I was ready to, Angel launched himself upon the Beast. Angel's strong and I saw the stake slamming towards the rockified beast, but I thought that his method of attack was suicide.

Angel was held up by the beast, too close for me to fire upon him again, though I was mightily tempted to.

Before my eyes, before our eyes, the Beast ripped the stake out of his chest and while holding Angel seemingly helpless, which is something that I'd never seen before save him buried alive beneath the sea, he slashed the stake at Angel, he mewled and then groan, and blood poured from his neck.

I heard Fred scream his name and then I saw Angel flying through the glass on his way down from fifteen stories up.

[quietkindocrazy]

A few seconds seemed like a whole eternity to me after the glass came crashing down. Finally I looked up and saw Angel fighting with the Beast. I could tell he was trying to find a weak spot, but he was being over powerd by the Beast and his rock-like shell.

"Angel!" I called out.

I knew what he was doing... he was trying to save us all by putting his own self in danger. But what would that accomplish? I couldn't bare to lose him too.

To my horror, the beast grabbed the stake and struck Angel on the side of his neck. There was so much blood that was spilling out from him. I wanted to run to him, I wanted to help him somehow, but I knew there was nothing I could to.

"No! Angel!"

I tried to look around me, for a weapon, for anything that would make the Beast release Angel, but before I found anything that would be remotely considered a weapon, the Beast laughed and tossed Angel right through a window.

I couldn't fight the urge to run to him any longer, and against my better judgement, I ran to him, only to be stopped by a strong pair of arms.

I looked up and saw Wesley's face. His eyes full of concered. There was nothing else we could do. Nothing.

[shanshu_angel]

Gasping, gargling, feeling worse probably then I’ve ever felt before, I felt the stake smash into my neck. The irony wasn’t lost on me in the brief moments before fear came to me that not only was I being impaled by my own stake, but I was being stabbed through the neck; the neck, where I had bitten so many before.

The Beast’s rocky grip was so intense and so strong that I couldn’t move, but for the seconds that he held me before he sent me airborne, I didn’t feel anything…anything but the cold. The blood, my blood, I could smell clear as day leaving my body and the only thing that remained for me right now was the fear.

I didn’t fear for my own life. I’d never wanted to die, but being a champion meant self-sacrifice and I had come to terms to that long ago, even before coming to Sunnydale. I didn’t fear for my own death. As I went airborne, I feared for the lives of Wesley and Fred because they stood no chance against him if I didn’t.

The glass shattered around me and the feeling of cold intensified as I knew I was in the air, tumbling towards the Earth. This wasn’t going to kill me and not even the blood loss was, but I would be dead if anything happened to Fred and Wesley after what had already happened to Gunn. I would be dead inside, with only Connor and Cordy, one who didn’t like me at all and the other who thought that I had been a baby-killer in the past suddenly, left on our team…left in our family.

When I splattered into the pavement, I was surprised at how I went from having thoughts, to seeing nothing…nothing but total blackness.

[pryce_less]

The Beast had tossed Angel out of the window, which came immediately after he had stabbed him in the throat with the stake. Holding the Machine gun with Angel now out of the way, I wanted to not only kill this abnormal, grotesque freak or rock, but I wanted to make him suffer while I did so.

I knew that Angel wouldn’t die from his injuries, though the blood loss that was likely would make him extraordinarily weak and with this wretched monster about, it was the last thing that we needed. But, I still recognized that with Jenoff taking Gunn’s soul and killing him and now with the Beast attempting to kill Angel, rather weakly, yet still attempting and assuredly now that Angel was gone; looking to kill us…that I wasn’t about to let something, regardless of how powerful that he was, divide our family again. I had just come back to Angel investigations and was trying to rebuild while dealing with guilt over Lilah and the combination made me as ornery as a rattlesnake.

I was about to squeeze off an entire magazine of rounds, when Fred ran towards the beast, just after Angel went flying out of the window. Suddenly, I couldn’t shoot the Beast anymore and not only because I had to protect her from the Beast, but also because she would likely be cut down by the ricocheting bullets.

I grabbed her before she could get closer, as the Beast turned his attention fully on us. There was no purpose to stay here and attempt to shoot this abhorrent thing and there was certainly no other method for us to hurt it. We had to regroup, get Angel back and get out of here safely. Muscling Fred more then I wanted to, but realizing that it was in my hands to see that we did everything as intelligently as possible with Angel having been thrown out of the window, I pulled her back from where we had entered and squeezed off several rounds. They hit the Beast, but didn’t hurt them.

Oddly, he did not take a step in our direction, which was more then satisfactory with me at the moment as Fred and I charged down the stairs.

[quietkindocrazy]

When Angel flew out that window, I could only think the worse. I had wanted to go after him, and out of instinct I ran in the direction that the Beast had tossed Angel. Yeah, it had been a bad idea, since the Beast was directly in front of me, but before I could think about all the repercussions my moment of stupidity would have, Wesley grabbed me and fired at the Beast once more.

Before I knew it, we were running down a flight of stairs, towards the ground floor. We ran as quickly as we could, our eyes searching for our friend who lay on the floor out cold.

I ran to him, and kneeled down, "Angel..." I called out softly.

Charles was gone, and I would be damned if I let Angel go too...

But there was so much blood. So much blood everywhere. I had never seen Angel so hurt before. My mind briefly wondered if vampires could die from so much blood loss... but I quickly erased those thoughts out of my head.

I let my fingertips touch the side of his face and called out to him again, "Come on Angel, please wake up."

I looked back to Wesley, silently asking him what we should do. What were we gonna do?

Suddenly Angel stirred. My neck snapped back so hard that it almost hurt, but I didn't care about that. All I cared about was my friend. He began to move some more, until he came to rest upon his elbows on the cold, hard floor.

It was then when I saw the extent of his injuries. My eyes went wide, but before I could move to help him, I heard what I could only describe as a volcanic eruption. I looked up at the sky and saw this fiery beam shoot out from the rooftop. As soon as the fire hit the sky it opened something and then like rain drops, fire rained from the darkened skies.