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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
"Got it," Eddie, the pilot, said with a small smile. With a will, he got to whatever he had to do to control the metal 'bird.' It continued gaining elevation with a will and headed over in the direction that Buffy had indicated. After watching Eddie for ten minutes, she was glad that she hadn't had to figure out how to pilot the helicopter herself, which she had been assuming someone in the team would, before she met Eddie. The controls were a good deal more complicated than 'steer left and right, up down, backwards forwards, hover.'
"By the way, ma'am..." Buffy looked at Eddie curiously, and he half winked at her. "Nice outfit."
Buffy stifled a blush. The clothes she was wearing now - a black spandex leotard, slinky dark blue skirt, black leather boots, a white headband in her hair, and the cold jewelry - had been a special surprise she had gotten for Xander in Liverpool. Spandex always got him hot and lusty. More correctly, the outfit had been part of the surprise -- the other part being that she had finally felt ready to have sex with Xander. Once they got to Sunnydale.
"Damn you, Obayana, you had to ruin even that," the Slayer swore under her breath. It had seemed appropriate somehow to wear these clothes for her first challenge - the first step to getting Xander back.
In the back, she heard whispers and mutters. Or maybe the voices only seemed that way because the sound of the helicopter's motor was drowning them out. After one final look out the window, she swivelled her chair around and back, so that she was facing into the troop compartment. Franco, Angel, Lora, Willow, and Marea were riding back here, of course.
"Hello, Buffy," Franco said solemnly. "We were just running over the plan of attack one more time. Would you like me to, um, 'take it from the top?'"
"Very well then. After eliminating the outside defences and destroying the non-critical buildings with this helicopter's armament..." Franco was reviewing the beginning of the plan anyway, Buffy noticed. He was a stubborn man in some ways. "We land and go in on foot. The key sites and figures of the Order cannot be left to modern firepower - we need to be certain of destroying them in the proper fashion."
"Got it already," Lora quipped. "Go on," she urged him impatiently.
"For maximum offensive and defensive capacity, we split into two teams," Angel carried on. "Marea, Lora, and of course Talbott are team A." Buffy started at that. Talbott had been brought along? Well, he could follow Lora in ways that weren't obvious, she supposed. As if in response to her thoughts, the giant hound-dog materialized out of nowhere, at the far end of the troop compartment.
"They will be lightly armed and highly mobile - able to cover the more distant targets without being trapped by superior numbers," Franco commented. "Their mission objectives are in the Dark Hand building - the Splicer breeding facilities, the training halls, and the prison holes." He turned to his charge, Marea, and the irrepressible Lora. "Remember, no not attack or otherwise antagonize individual Hunters. Destroy the facilities and retreat."
"What about ranking officers of the Order?" Lora asked anxiously. "There will be some, won't there?" She was itching for a fight, Buffy could tell. Possibly literally. The hunters of Lora's family line had been so cursed that they were almost addicted to battle with demons. Lora's help so far in this effort had been invaluable, Buffy could tell, but it had also been light on the action. Well, there would be enough fighting once they landed, Buffy was sure.
"There will be," Marea assured her partner. "At least one. The intendant in charge of that building is a Sentinel demon, as I recall. Quite a powerful specimen. The only vulnerability of his kind is magic blades."
"Which means that I'm on point to kill his ass," Lora said grimly, fingering the scabbard at her back. "Good."
"Once you've done, come back into the Great hall and find us," Willow told them. Franco smiled at the younger watcher and gestured for her to continue with the briefing. "Okay. Well, the other four of us are team B - Franco, myself, Angel, and of course Buffy. We brave the great hall of Taraka first, and destroy - basically everything. The primary targets are Discipline central, Taraka's command office, the summoning rooms, the Void-ship hangar, and of course Taraka himself and his senior officers. When we get in, the first problem is likely to be the 'Kastos' vampires. They're..."
"Excuse me, ma'am," Eddie hollered back over the helicopter rotors. "I think we're getting there. You wanted to be out here for the approach, yes?"
"Yes, definitely!" Buffy replied, switching her seat back up front and around in record time. Sure enough, on the plateau of a high, lonely and forgotten mountain, a complex of dark buildings clustered. Their layout was instantly remeniscent of Franco's plans for the retreat.
"Have we been noticed?" Buffy asked.
"I think so. Look." A spotlight switched on, pointing down, showing a cluster of fiercely agitated figures below. Vampires. One much taller figure loomed over them - an ogre of some sort, maybe?
"Go in for the landing," Buffy told him. "I'll handle them." But first, she switched on the controls for a weapon of a different sort - a rocket launcher. With careful precision, she destroyed half a dozen of the buildings, then a seventh, an eighth.
As Eddie nervously approached his landing, the vampires were clustered around the site he was obviously intending to put down. Considering the number of them, and their strength, they could probably throw the helicopter on its side the second it touched down, which was probably their plan.
Such was not to be. With a single press of her finger, Buffy released the fire extinguisher-style water tanks on the helicopter. These tanks and the associated distribution system had been carefully rebuilt to hold holy water without desecrating it.
As firewater rained down upon them from above, the vampires were soon in no mood to present any kind of resistance. All of them were lying upon the ground, unmoving, their burns melting the snow in which they had fallen.
That was when the ogre charged the helicopter, ready to snap it in two. Ogre hide was tough, but no match, as it turned out, for machine gun bullets. After four rounds had been fired into him, the giant beast slipped crashingly to the rocks, never to rise again.
"Okay, let's go," Buffy called out, opening her door and urging her friends out through the troop hatchway. "Get out of here," she repeated to Eddie. "If we're alive, we'll meet you at the rendezvous point."
"Got it," Eddie yelled back. He hadn't stopped the rotor motor. As soon as Buffy slipped out of the cabin and her door slammed shut, the propellor started picking up speed again and soon the 'bird' was airborne again.
"Let's go," Angel called out as Buffy approached, carrying her weapons, as they all were now. "Form up teams, and move out, top-speed. They know that someone's here already."
"Good luck!" Buffy shouted out to Marea and Lora as they charged off, even though she knew that there really wasn't time for such sentiments.
"Be careful," Willow called out at almost the same time.
* * * *
Whatever warning the Order had had, it apparently wasn't enough for such simple precautions as locking the door. Or maybe they hadn't thought of it - it must have been hundreds, even thousands of years, since anyone had dared attack the followers of dread Taraka.
As Buffy, Angel, and the Watchers charged from the front door of the Tarakan great hall into the main foyer, the 'Kastos' vampires made their appearance, right on schedule. They were old vampires, as old as the Master Franco had said, and at least as dangerous. That had been a wakeup call. After all this time, the Master was still one of the toughest fights that she had been through.
This time, though, they had the advantages of surprise, and superior firepower. Buffy shot off three crossbow bolts, and was rewarded with a kill, right off the bat, as one of the 'Kastos' was too surprised with this frontal assault to take any evasive action. Franco also managed to peg one, with his longbow.
Working quickly, (since they couldn't afford to be slowed down too long by these guardians of the gate,) Buffy pressed the button on her auto crossbow to load an incindiary bolt, and fired, Just as he had the first time, this 'Kastos' seized the crossbow quarrel around its point, keeping it away from his heart. Unfortunately for him, the crossbow head was burning fiercely by then, and the flames started to spread up his arm. He was doomed.
Buffy turned around to the last Kastos, number four, but this canny vampire was already dodging completely an arrow from Franco. He'd likely be able to do the same for any shot of Buffy's, which meant that she'd only be wasting ammunition. Dropping the crossbow by the side of the room where she could grab it later, she urged the others, "Go on. I'll take care of this bozo hand to hand, and then catch up."
"Buffy, are you sure?" Willow asked quietly. "I mean, a staking fight could last ten minutes, if you'd even win. And reinforcements are showing up here any minute."
"Just go," Buffy urged them, and they left. Buffy bent down to grab one of Franco's arrows, and glared at the vampire. This would be a good enough makeshift stake.
The Kastos vampire grinned nastily, walked up towards her, and took a defensive posture about five feet away, waiting for Buffy to attack him.
Suddenly, Buffy dropped the arrow and reached for the truesilver sword at her hip, swinging it out so quickly that the vampire couldn't figure out a reaction for this drastic change in the situation. With an ugly sound, his head was hacked off of his body, and both disintegrated into dust.
Buffy found time for a single word, spoken with the deepest of contempt for her destroyed foe. "Sucker." Then she ran, got her crossbow, and hurried to catch up with the others.
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