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(This is original story written by Chris Kenworthy, based on the Buffy characters, who he does not own etcetera etcetara...)
Taraka cocked his head slightly, a smile growing. "We would both take the oath of Akradion, which can never be broken, not even by one of such power as I. You can be assured of that." Willow nodded slightly in confirmation. "The magic power of the oath, the word 'honor' in the ancient language, would bind us both."
Angel nodded grimly. "And you would so swear that the ritual of re-mortalization exists, and you will tell us how to find it, at the price of your life? And never seek us personal harm thereafter?"
"In the name of Akradion, I so swear it," Taraka intoned solemnly. Angel nodded, lowering his weapon slightly, and the demon sighed with obvious relief.
So quickly that it was hard to believe it was happening, the spear was lifted in Angel's arms again, and then it was flying, its course straight and true for the ram-head's chest. Taraka gasped in surprise, and flame materialized around Angel, but it died away before it could touch him. The spear was impaled in Taraka's body, and he fell witheredly to the ground. In two heartbeats Angel was there beside him, grabbing the spear in both of his hands, twisting it, pulling it out slightly and then in again harder, making sure that the demon was dead.
When he was sure that it was done, he turned to look at Buffy and Willow, who were staring at him agape. "Uh... what?"
"Wh- why didn't you take the deal, Angel?" Willow asked. "B- being human is all that you could ever want. Why didn't you do it."
"The price was too high," Angel said solemnly. "Our mission here is to destroy the Order of Taraka and all of its works. If we had let Taraka go, soon enough he could have rebuilt..." he paused and waved his hand vaguely all around, "...all this. Soon enough to mean the end for Buffy... and for all of the world, maybe."
Willow's face fell slightly as he mentioned Buffy in that connection, for no reason that seemed good enough to her. "Plus, I figured that if Taraka could find the spell, with you on our team, Will, we could find it ourselves. Without compromising on inch on our missions." That idea brought a smile to Willow's face.
"Umm... I hate to break up this touching moment, but, um, should Taraka's body be doing that?" Buffy asked nervously. Willow and Angel turned to look. Where the rhodintor demon's corpse had been just moments before, a blackened mass of bubbling viscousity oozed slowly over the floor, spreading outwards with slow but increasing speed.
"Uh-oh," Angel muttered. "It's Taraka's imprecation - the final booby curse that he prepared years ago to take final revenge on those responsible for his death. It's black puddings - almost impossible to destroy, and they can burn through anything." Angel was backing away from the door, making sure that Willow and Buffy had a clear line of retreat to the door. "I think that we'd better get out of here before it spreads too far."
"With ya, dark one," Buffy quipped, leading the way off as quickly as her legs would take her. Angel waited for Willow, and brought up the rear.
* * * *
In a deserted alleyway behind the Bronze, three of the vampire legion laughed and pounded each other on the shoulder as they walked. A young lady headed into the alley from the other end, saw off-duty vampires, and turned around to head back the way she had come.
"No, wait girl. Stay where you are," the oldest of the vampires called out to her. Snarling in fury and frustration, the vamp charged off after her, his two companions following at a half-stagger.
When the lead vamp got to the other end of that dark alleyway, he turned and spotted the girl, half a block away and heading elsewhere at a good pace. "Freeze!" He growled. The girl kept on walking, after a few moments half breaking into a run.
"If you take one step more all of your family will die!" It was half a bluff, but an effective one. The girl windmilled to a stop as quickly as she could disperse her momentum.
Slowly, surely, the demonic predators made their way to her. "What's your name, girl?" one of the less alery vampires asked her.
"I..." The helpless victim choked her information off, realizing that any information she gave would only give the vampires a greater chance to achieve their threat of hurting her family.
"Now, don't be difficult, girl," the fist vampire whispered huskily. "We have ways of finding out - if you should anger us. Right now, though, we're just asking out of a sense of curiosity."
"K-Kathryn," the girl said. "Kathryn Blake."
"Goood," the vamp crooned with satisfaction. "Say g'night, Kathryn." As Kathryn, (the prom queen of Sunnydale High,) stiffened in shock, afraid to resist effectively lest her family pay the price, and the vampire bared his fangs and savored the anticipation of tender teenage blood.
Unseen to all of them, an individual slipped off of a fire escape fifteen feet away and landed on the ground with both feet. The vampires heard the soft sound of her impact though. Turning, they looked at her, vamp number one still holding Kathryn Blake helpless.
The newcomer was an impressive figure in midnight blue spandex that showed off womanly curves in all the right places. A mask concealed some of her face, but left blonde-highlighted hair free to blow in the midnight breeze. The three vampires stared at her as she wandered over to the field of the action.
"Say, big boys, why don't you let Princess go and try me on for size?" she purred, stepping up to the demonspawn.
"I think we're thirsty enough for both," the lead vampire grunted. Passing Kathryn over to his friend who had asked her name, he gestured at his other friend and closed on the intruder.
WHAM! Spandex-girl's fist collided with Grunty's head, ringingly, and he fell back, staggered. Turning, she faced the other vampire, and with one foot swept his legs out from under him. She pulled a stake from out of her waistband...
And got body-blocked by Grunty, swept to the hard asphalt of the street herself. Grunty brushed her hair back, trying to bare her neck. But the vigilantess was still ready for him. An elbow to the ribs, a knee to the inner thigh, and Grunty was distracted enough that she could swing him over. Then her stake found the heart, and game over. Grunty exploded into dust.
By this time, vamp number two had picked himself up, and vamp number three had reluctantly released Kathryn, (who was in no condition to run away,) preferring to stay on his guard. Our heroine oriented immediately on vamp number two. WHIING!! A quick crescent kick to the side of his face almost staggered the vamp again. Twisting, she turned around so that her back was to him, grabbed one of his hands, and flipped him over her shoulder. Another staking.
When she turned to face vamp three, he instinctively took a step back. "That's right," the girl in midnight blue said, the first time she had spoken since the fight began. There was still something... provocative about her tone. "Run. Tell your brethren that a time of reckoning has come for the sons of Evan. For a vampire Slayer guards the humans of Sunnydale once more, and not even the care of the Fireking is protection enough. RUN!!" The vampire did exactly that.
Turning for a second as if to take inventory, the girl in blue stepped over to Kathryn, drew her up, and whispered, "Are you okay?"
"Me? Yes," she sobbed. "But my family..."
"I don't think that they're too likely to become targets now," the 'slayer' said comfortingly. "We'll watch them though. If it seems like it's neccessary, we may even be able to get them underground."
"Underground?" Kathryn said as she began to walk, with support. "Who are the 'we' you're talking about??"
"Resistance forever."
* * * *
"Ack!! Little problem here," Buffy called from around a corner.
"What is it Buffy?" Willow asked, following at a breakneck pace. For an instant it occured to her that she might be better not to turn that corner until she knew what was there, but it was too late. There she was.
A half-dozen... no, it must be eight or nine monsters were barring the only way out of this subsection. Two lizard-men, three well-armed black elves, and several different kinds of demons... and they still hadn't rendezvoused with Marea and Lora yet. This was going to be a tough fight.
"Say, Angel, how close is the black pudding behind us?" she yelled conversationally.
Behind her, Angel called back, "I haven't seen it since we got out of the elite quarters." A pause. "Until now."
Just great. Willow took a firm grip on her staff and stepped forward to face one of the combatants, an evilly grinning dark elf who happened to be carrying a similar weapon. Good enough.
"En guarde," she muttered, holding her staff crossways, one end angled slightly up and the other slightly down - the traditional defensive position.
Bam. BAM! BAMM!! Quickly the elf took the initiative, drawing Willow steadily out of her defensive posture. He had the advantage of height and reach over her, and he used it mercilessly. Suddenly his staff was cracking painfully into Willow's face. The pain was an explosion - Willow's cheek, nose, and chin felt sore, and her right eyeball hurt.
"Willow!!" Buffy cried out, but she was already locked in combat with multiple attackers, and Will knew that neither she nor Angel would be able to come to her rescue. Willow was the one who was facing the most favorable odds here, and she had to either make it on her own or meet the same fate as Franco did.
The same fate as Franco. One watcher had already been lost here in the retreat - if Willow died too, that would leave Buffy and Marea without anyone to count on in that capacity. Willow Rosenberg could just not let that happen. She fought back as fiercely as she could, drawing on the techniques that Buffy and Mister Tojo had taught her when she first started studying combat. The staff had been her preferred weapon for a long time, solid, easy to use, but capable of surprising subtlety and power in the hands of a trained expert. She wasn't about to lose to this reject from the book of Greyhawk.
Then again, the black elf had probably been studying the combat art of the quarterstaff for about two hundred years longer than she had.
Suddenly desperate enough to improvise, Willow threw her own staff up into the air and grabbed at her opponent's weapon. Would he struggle with her for it, or let her take his staff?? He kept hold, wrestling for it. Willow kept on as best she could, though her wrists were aching with the fierce struggle, and her feet were barely keeping their grip on the tile floor.
And then Willow's staff came down - right upon Blackie's head. He hadn't been expecting that impact, and his grip softened for just an instant. That was long enough for Willow to grab ahold of his staff and start whaling on him - bashing him several more times upon the head, in amongst the ribs, on the knees and legs. Then she moved away - he wouldn't be enough more of a problem to worry about right now.
With a bit more ingenuity and teamwork, the rest of the monsters were dispatched fairly quickly. "Willow, are you okay?" Angel gasped out when he got his first good look at her. "Your face... your eye."
Willow caught sight of herself in a mirrored eye. Her skin was read where the enemy had struck her so fiercely, bruising and even bleeding slightly in places. The eye was obviously very bloodshot and swollen. But Willow shook her head in a deprecating gesture. "I'm fine," she told him. "We gotta goo!!" Sure enough, the black pudding was starting to approach their feet - it was time to run again.
At the foyer, they finally met up with Marea and Lora. "Where is Franco?" Marea said instantly.
Uh-oh. "I'm so sorry, Marea," Willow said as gently as she could between exhausted puffs of breath. "Franco didn't make it."
"What??" Marea exclaimed suddenly. "And... and you just left him... somewhere in there??"
"We had to, Marea," Buffy said solemnly. "Come on, we've gotta go."
"Go?" Lora said curiously. "Why??"
The black pudding exploded into the foyer. "Because of that," Willow pointed out. "How did you guys do??"
"Got all targets," Lora said as they hurried out of the Great Hall. "You?"
"Um... we missed a few," Buffy admitted. "But we figure that a black pudding covers a multitude of sins."
"What about the void-ship hanger?" Marea pointed out. "It is probably protected well enough that the black pudding will not destroy it!!"
"Well, we can't get to it now," Angel pointed out. "The watchers can send someone in to secure it after the black pudding dies. It's more valuable in the right hands than destroyed, after all."
They had gotten back to the spot where the helicopter had landed now, and found the skis that had been left there. Ski-ing was the best way down off of this mountain plateau, and certainly the fastest. Considering the black menace at their heels, Buffy was very glad that they had brought the downhill skiing equipment.
Quickly, then, they were heading down the slope. All too soon, though, black acid-like pudding was following them down. "It'll make good time down the incline," Lora called out. "Possibly better than us!!"
"What can we do?" Buffy called back.
"There's a jump over a small chasm not far from here," Angel suggested. "The black pudding can't jump - it'll fall inside."
"Lead the way," Willow suggested, and Angel skiied ahead of the others, bearing left. In a minute's time, the jump opened up before them. Angel jumped off, confidently, and sailed into the air. He was going to make it fine, Buffy could tell.
Willow was the first to follow him to the jump, but she stumbled just six feet away from the jump. The redhead tumbled to the lip of the chasm and plummeted off like a stone. "WILLOW!!!" Buffy shouted, knowing that there was nothing that she could do now.
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