FIC: Daybreak Postponed (13/14) or thereabouts

["C S Armitage" <soren_nyrond@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Anne-Lise: hope you get this before you go !!

  
TITLE: Daybreak Postponed [approximately] (13/14)
AUTHOR: Soren Nyrond
DISCLAIMER: All characters in this part belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy -- etc etc as in part (0/12). Some ideas have been borrowed for elsewhere to illuminate this story: they did once belong to Other Companies (and still do, I imagine), but since they are by way of being generic concepts, Idon't think anything's awry.
SUMMARY: Okay -- Final Battle part 2 -- smoochies nil(?); punchies several
ARCHIVING:: Please wait till this is through
SPOILERS: None - none of this ever happened in the ME-world
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Molto gratitude for the constructive feedback. And Save The Snippets !!!



DAYBREAK HAS BEEN POSTPONED
By Soren Nyrond

Part Twelve - Going Down (in a nice way)

 

 

"We can barely see anything," Buffy complained.

"You don't have to sit next to a *dead man*," Cordy commented, but Faith cuddled her back into some soft of calm.

The chanting had been going on for almost an hour now - the Compton Room was entirely buried in a swirling darkness, which was punctuated only by occasional red and violet glows, and the chanting by unearthly growls and howls. Giles was listening, trying to gauge the moment to deploy Buffy and Faith, and Willow was poised to cast what spells she could to dispel evil darknesses and let her friends see to fight. Xander, for his part, (having beenrebuffed as a comforter by Cordy) had been building something that looked like a ladder out of pieces of the broken furniture.

"They are almost ready to bring in the sacrifices," Giles said. "I think that's about when you and Faith should . erm . 'drop in' on them. If we leave things too long then the barriers between dimensions may be too weakenedeven before the sacrifices have been properly offered."

"Sacrifices - what sort of sacrifices ?"

"Human, probably," Willow said. "If the other girls have been hypnotised like Samantha was . " Her voice trailed off.

"Willow is right," Giles said: "Quentin may have realised that a Slayer's soul would be very . appetising . to a demon, as well as cutting down the number of people who could fight back."

"Okay - so we get ready ?" Buffy asked. "Will - we'll need that spell: it's pitch black down there."

"Don't fret, B," Faith said. "Red'll do her part, just like always." She turned back to Cordelia. "Hang in there, C - I'll be back in two shakes of. well, soon enough."

The chanting reached a crescendo and Buffy poised herself. It would be tricky job: they would have to break the window, and drop down all in one. Then Giles signalled her away again: the chanting had started again.

"Xander - if I could just . what is that ?"

"You don't think I'd let my buds do this on their own, do you, Giles ? This is 'all for one' time."

"Xander - !"

"You'll be killed !" Willow squeaked.

"And this is wrong why ?" Cordelia muttered, squeezing even further away from Professor Hodgson

"If that's a hammer, "Buffy said, "there's something you could do ."

"B, Giles - we have - "

The chanting suddenly paused, just as the darkness suddenly took living form again.

"There are enemies close !" a voice shouted from the hall below.

"Eww !" Cordelia swiped with her spatula as she scrambled to her feet.

"Buffy !" Giles was caught between the immediate danger and the danger of missing the key moment to disrupt Quentin's unholy ceremony.

"Xander - break the window !" Buffy ordered. "Faith - take care of this. Willow - I'll need - !"

There was no time to say more - the darkness was sweeping round the room, Xander had the window broken: she kicked the remaining glass out of her way and shoulder-rolled the hole and dropped.

Willow recited the spell she had prepared, then turned her attention to themore immediate problem of the living darkness.

 

"Slayer !"

The light spell ripped through the darkness in the Compton Room: Buffy had gained and lost: she could see her foes, but they could see her as well.

At first it didn't look too bad. There was Quentin Travers standing on thestage in a tatty-looking set of robes, pointing at her. Most of the otherpeople there were in ordinary clothes, but Elspeth Jennings was just belowthe stage area, tied to a kitchen table, dressed in what looked like a badly-torn Victorian nightgown.

And around the edges stood a variety of younger people, all of them in the same sort of dead-to-the-worlds state as Samantha had been, none of them looking like they proposed to present much of a problem.

Then she noticed that there were smoke-like tendrils extending from the kids toward the group on the platform. And a scream (full-lunged, heart-felt)came from the smashed window from which she had just dropped.

 

"Bugger !" Rupert Giles didn't often swear (Ripper had used to do, until he'd noticed the connections between swearing and Things come to make good on the oaths) but in this case -

If only Cordelia would stop screaming .

On the other hand, having a dead body suddenly come to life, right beside you . 

 

Willow managed to get through the dispelling charm to subdue the animate darkness, but then the cupboard beneath her started to shake and she guessed the prisoners were awake. Then she realised that Professor Roberts was also up and about, however dead he might have been.

 

Faith was in a quandary: she wanted to dive out the window and go kick demon butt and Quentin Travers' pale, despicable, traitorous, English throat. On the other hand there was a zombie threatening her Cordy-cuddle-bunny (and if anyone ever heard her using those words .), and two possible bully-boys under Willow's precarious perch .

She knew better than to go on her gut-instinct: it had led her awry too often, but she just couldn't decide what was for the best.

 

Cordelia just wanted it to go away (the 'it' in question being both the dead body lurching around trying to grab her, and the entire 'England-In-Peril' plotline). And screaming at it didn't seem to be doing much (although itwas very good for her nerves). She'd tried flailing the spatula at it - now Giles was trying to shout something to her, something about using The Other Stuff, and she couldn't understand why someone wasn't Doing Something to Help her. After all, among them, she was the . poor, helpless stereotypical heroine .

This majorly sucked .

 

As the cupboard door was smashed open Xander rammed his makeshift ladder atthe emerging shapes only to have it snatched from his grasp. One of the heavies tried to get out and Xander went into "improvised drop-kick" mode - only to see that, as the kick landed and the guy was shot back into the cupboard, the jolt also shook Willow loose - and through the window !!

 

 

Alerted more by instinct than anything, Buffy span round, kicked off a couple of guys who were getting too close (Watchers-in-training, she guessed, from the horn-rimmed spectacles and maleness), and managed to catch Willow and convert the downward vector into a duck, cuddle, roll, and kick (in the nadgers) two more potential foes.

She heard Travers shout something else and was filled with a desire to throttle him, but instead found two girls making for her and Willow. She was just about to go mana-a-mana on them, when what looked like a lightning-boltcame over her shoulder and took them out.

 

The Annexe room was rapidly becoming untenable and Giles decided to abandonit. "Everyone, out and down !" he shouted.

"They broke my ladder !" Xander objected, but Faith darted a hard look at him.

"Take C, get her down. I'll deal with - "

 

She'd been about to mention the zombie professor, but Cordelia had just worked out what Giles had been on about, and reached into her bag, produced a bottle, and doused the undead academic with the contents. The smell was intense, as the professor decayed in seconds into dust and bones.

"Okay - he's . whatever. What - oh, God - !!"

The cupboard was shattering under the blows of its two prisoners .

 

Willow steeled herself for another effort - the shock blast hadn't been toohard but now .

"Get Elspeth !" Buffy said tersely, but Willow could see no way to obey - students (she assumed Slayers and Watchers-to-be) were all round them, beingchoreographed by Quentin Travers and the Council - or the Inner Circle at least: several people seemed to be fleeing the room at some speed.

Buffy punched away two who came too close and shouted to the rest that theywouldn't be hurt if they didn't threaten her. Travers made some comment she couldn't hear, and then suddenly a space was opening up. even as people formed a wall that would stop either her or Willow from leaving.

Vaguely she heard Travers tell them that the "little witch" had to be "taken alive" - she had a good guess quite what was intended for Willow: if a Slayer made a good sacrifice, what about a Wiccan ?

Then Willow gasped and as Buffy turned, she saw what she hadn't expected - Samantha Rose.