Fan Fiction ❯ Quickened ❯ Rain of Fire ( Chapter 7 )

Author's note: This chapter assumes that the reader is familiar with the both the Angel season four episode entitled, “Apocalypse Nowish” and the Buffy season seven episode “Same Time, Same Place.” The episodes are the framework for this chapter, and it may be confusing to anyone who's never seen them. While I have transcribed several sections that I feel are relevant to the telling of my story, I felt no great urge to type up the scripts word for word. Also, yeah, I fudged the timeline a teeny bit. With that in mind, enjoy!

 

---------------------

PREVIOUSLY, ON ANGEL

---------------------

 

Fred: “I've been asked to present my article at the Physics Institute.”

 

Professor Seidel: *introducing Fred to an audience* “Winifred Burkle.”

Fred: “Thank you, Professor.”

 

Fred: “Professor Seidel. He sent me to Pylea.”

 

In Professor Seidel's laboratory, Fred points her crossbow Professor Seidel, who frantically scrambles to escape from the portal that Fred has opened.

Gunn bursts into the laboratory. “If you kill him, I'm gonna lose you.”

Gunn breaks the Professor's neck, and pushes him into the portal.

 

Angel: “Cordelia?”

Cordelia: “Who are you people?”

 

Angel: “She just showed up with no memory, no idea who she is or where she's been.”

 

Angel: “Pick a song.”

Gunn: “You sing, and he sees your future.”

Cordelia begins singing very badly. “~Because the greatest... love of all is easy to achieve...~”

Lorne's eyes widen.

 

Lorne: “What I saw was jumbled. Evil's coming, Angel, and it's planning on staying.”

 

Cordelia, speaking to Conner: “Can you get me out of here?”

Connor offers his hand.

 

Angel: “She's with Conner. My son.”

 

Angel: “Wolfram and Hart were after what Lorne saw when she sang.”

Fred: “They sucked it out of his head?”

Angel: “How much did they get?”

Lorne: “All of it.”

 

Lorne: “I found a memory spell guaranteed to bring our Cordy back to the way she was.”

 

Angel: “Were we in love?”

Cordelia, her voice filled with sadness: “We were.”

 

-----------------

AND NOW...

-----------------

 

It had been a long day for Angel Investigations. A long, fearful day, filled with portents of doom and peculiar occurrences, both natural and supernatural. At the Hyperion Hotel, Lorne, Gunn and Wesley sat gathered round a paper-covered coffee table. Hundreds of sheets of paper, every one of them covered in mystical symbols. Nearby, Angel paced impatiently.

 

“That's everything that Wolfram and Hart could decipher from what they took out of Lorne,” said Angel.

 

“They just handed these over?” Wesley asked.

 

Angel smiled faintly. “Lilah - she can be very giving.”

 

“You trust her on this?” asked Gunn.

 

“No, but she's got an interest in stopping the end of the world before it ruins Wolfram and Hart's end of the world, so...”

 

Gunn gave him a strange look. “Right. OK, what's the plan?”

 

“You're holding it.” The ensouled vampire took a seat on the couch next to Gunn. “We figure out what all this means, then we do something large and violent.”

 

“I can see you've given this considerable thought,” Wesley commented dryly.

 

Lorne held up a handful of papers. “So all of this came out of my head? No wonder it made me greener.”

 

Angel shrugged. “If Wolfram and Hart hadn't extracted it, you'd be a paler shade of dead.”

 

“Yeah, well, remind me to send 'em a fruit basket.” The phone rang, and he stood up and headed over to the front desk to answer it. “Saved by the continuous bell.”

 

“You've been logging the calls?” asked Angel.

 

“Every last squishy one.”

 

Angel nodded. “Grab a map and start marking the locations. See if they're concentrated in any one area.” He glanced at Wes and Gunn. “Whatever's happening, whatever Cordy's seen, the answers are in these pages. We need to figure this out.”

 

A short time later...

 

Gunn gestured towards the pile of papers that he had arranged. The arcane symbols on the papers formed a square with an X within. “OK, so what the hell is this?”

 

Angel and Wesley's eyes widened.

 

“The eye of fire.”

 

Wesley nodded. “Ancient alchemical symbol for fire.”

 

Angel grimaced. “And destruction.”

 

“You had me at fire,” said Gunn.

 

Lorne held up the map he had been working on. “Um, boys? I hate to be the little demon that cried apocalypse nowish, but, uh...” He gestured to the map, having plotted the locations of each disturbance with a red dot. The dots formed a square with an X through it encompassing most of the San Fernando valley. “Looks like X marks the spot. So what are we gonna do, sports fans?”

 

Gunn scooped up his axe from where it lay on the floor. “What we always do.”

 

Angel nodded as he rose to his feet. “Time to save the day.”

 

---------------------------------------

 

Quickened

by P.H. Wise

A Buffy crossover fanfic

 

Chapter 7: Rain of Fire

 

Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy. I don't own Angel. I don't own Highlander. Please don't sue me. I'm only a poor starving writer. I have no money. `Apocalypse Nowish' was written by Stephen S. DeKnight. `Same Time, Same Place' was written by Jane Espenson.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

`Well,' Willow thought as she peered out the window from her seat some two rows behind the wings on the 747, `At least I can watch the landing. Sort of.'

 

The 747 was on its final approach to the Sunnydale airport, just now passing through the cloud-like smog cover. Willow watched as the last stars vanished, replaced by the thick gray noxious soup of home. She sighed.

 

Her diary was open in her lap. She'd been keeping it ever since she had arrived in England, and in the few moments she wasn't spending worrying about whether or not her friends would accept her back, she was wondering if she'd ever write in it again.

 

She absently flipped the pages.

 

`It's something, isn't it? One tiny piece of metal destroys everything. That's what I told Warren before I... before... it happened. One tiny piece of metal took her away from the world - from me. I wonder what Warren felt like at the end? I wonder if he's in Heaven like Buffy was? I hope he's in hell. Or at least a really nasty part of Sheol.

 

`Me and God haven't talked in a long time. I guess I'm not a very good Jew, being a witch and all, but I don't think I'd want to talk to him, anyways. Not after what he did.

 

`Allowed.

 

`Same thing.'

 

Willow shuddered, the remembered bitterness of that day passing through her mind like a shadow over the sun. She flipped the pages and read over a few more entries.

 

`I keep swallowing. I wonder why I'm always swallowing? And when I wonder about it, I can't seem to stop swallowing. I never used to swallow all the time. I don't do it when I'm not worrying about it, but I can't seem to stop worrying. What if I can't do this magical twelve-step thing? What if when this whole thing is done I go right back to where I was when ... it happened?

 

`I feel kind of drunk, but I haven't drunk anything. Me and mind-altering substances don't mix too well. I even have a hard time with caffeine. How did I ever think I'd be able to handle something like magic? ... But this isn't magic. Or caffeine. Or alchohol. It's hard to pay attention to what anyone says. Or maybe it's just hard to want to. But I don't want to be alone. When I'm alone here, it's worst of all. Was this what it was like for Buffy after we... after I ripped her out of Heaven?

 

`I miss her. I hope she'll be able to forgive me, someday. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I get a funky kind of `Buffy-sense.' I bet I could follow it right to where she is if I tried. Faith, too. It's been like that since the Spell. I'll have to ask Giles about that.'

 

She frowned. She never had asked Giles about the whole “Buffy-sense.” The feeling of Buffy's presence was growing stronger with every passing moment. Ditto for Faith, though the sense of Buffy was now growing much faster than the sense of the other. She shook her head. No matter.

 

`They tell me Tara... there, I wrote her name. Tara.

 

`They tell me that she'll always be with me, in my heart. But I don't want her with me in my heart! I want her to be with me by my side. It isn't fair! My Tara... she made everything bright, and now she's gone. Forever.

 

What does that mean, forever?

 

I don't care. Forever can mean whatever it wants.'

 

`Giles tells me I need to keep a diary while I'm here in England. He says that it will help make things better.

 

`Easy for him to say.

 

`He insisted. I went out and bought a little empty book that said “diary” on it, and showed it to him. See? I have a diary. It even says “diary” right on the cover. I made sure to get one that was extra papery.

 

`I wonder why they call it a diary? And I wonder who `they' is? I bet it was the Romans. Hah. Those Romans with their big Latin words. Always NAMING things. And what's so special about Latin, anyways? How come so many spells have to be spoken in Latin? Did someone decide one day that what made Latin so Latiny made it a good language for magic?

 

`I guess I'm babbling again. You'd think it would be harder to babble on paper than it is to do it out loud, but it's not. It's easy to do that when I don't want to think about what I'm really supposed to be writing about. I know I should, but I don't think I'm ready yet. Maybe tomorrow.'

 

She shut the diary there. Day one.

 

The plane had finished its landing in the time it had taken her to read through those bitter pages. As the 747 pulled in to the terminal, she put the diary back in her bag.

 

“Welcome home, me,” she said.

 

And that was when the earth began to shake.

 

Willow's eyes widened even as they darkened to black, and she looked towards Los Angeles with fear etched into her face.

 

-------------------------------------

 

Buffy, Xander and Dawn stood at the gate, waiting for Willow's plane to land. Xander held a big white sign on which was written, “WELCOME BACK WILLOW,” in bright yellow crayon.

 

“You think she'll get the sign?” Xander asked.

 

Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Get the sign? I don't think she's gonna see the sign.”

 

“Why is it so pale?” asked Dawn.

 

“I used yellow crayon. It was a thing from when I talked to Willow on the bluff. I hope she gets it.”

 

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Oh, tell us again what you said.”

 

“Well, I was talking from my heart and I knew Evil Willow wasn't really ready to...” he trailed off. “You were kidding.”

 

Dawn grinned. “Little bit.”

 

“We've heard the crayon speech a few times,” Buffy noted, “Not that it's not great, of course.”

 

“I saved the world with talking from my mouth,” said Xander. “My mouth saved the world.”

 

“Uh-huh,” said Dawn. She waited a beat. “I'm getting nervous. Are you nervous?”

 

“Yeah,” said Buffy. “It's gonna be weird seeing her. What do you say to someone in this situation?”

 

“I'm gonna say `Hi, Willow.'”

 

“C'mon. You're saying it's not going to be the least bit strange? We saw her kill someone. She was about to kill Dawn...”

 

“And Giles wouldn't let her leave unless she completed that whatever recovery course.”

 

Dawn nodded. “Right.”

 

Buffy tried to conceal a guilty look.

 

Dawn looked at Buffy pointedly. “Right?”

 

“Well... she kinda didn't finish.”

 

Dawn frowned. “She didn't finish? She didn't finish being not evil?”

 

“He said it was really important that she come back early and that she was doing really well and we shouldn't...”

 

The earth began to shake violently. Screams echoed through the terminal as people everywhere began ducking for cover.

 

“...worry,” Buffy finished, her tone most definitely a worried one.

 

--------------------------------------

 

Fred sat alone in a booth at a quiet little all-night diner, an empty coffee mug sitting on the table in front of her. She was on her ninth cup or so, and she was starting to get a little twitchy, but she showed no sign of being even remotely ready to leave. She stared at the mug as though she was trying to see through it, but she didn't ask for a refill. Turns out, she didn't need to. The waitress came by after a few moments of quality `stare' time with a pot of coffee and poured her another mug-full.

 

“I'll give you this one more,” the waitress said, “But then I'm cutting you off.”

 

Fred blinked owlishly and glanced at the waitress. “Oh, sorry. I can pay for the next one.”

 

The waitress shook her head, smiling wryly. “It's not the free refills that I'm worried about. It's you vibrating into another dimension after a tenth cup.”

 

Despite the fact that she knew the waitress was only trying to be funny, Fred grimaced. Alternate dimensions were not really something she wanted to think about just now. “Nobody wants that,” she said.

 

“Why don't you call him? You've been sitting here all day. He's probably worried sick.”

 

“I don't know what I'd say.”

 

The waitress raised an eyebrow. “I think `hello' would probably do it. I've seen the way he looks at you when you two come in here. That man would do anything for you.”

 

“I know,” said Fred, a note of hopelessness creeping into her voice.

 

The waitress didn't seem to notice. “Cheer up. Whatever's going on, as long as you've got love, it can't be that bad.”

 

Fred opened her mouth to reply, but a distant rumbling killed her sentence before it could form. The rumbling quickly grew louder, and the building began to shake violently. She scrambled out of the booth and crouched down on the floor, pulling the waitress down with her. “Get away from the window!”

 

--------------------------------

 

Angel, Wesley, Gunn and Lorne stepped through the doors to the Sky Temple Club and stopped short. The hulking form of the Beast stood before them at the center of the club inside a square of human corpses arranged in strict formation. The Beast turned to face them, dropping yet another corpse into the center of the square, which landed in a spread-eagled `X'.

 

Lorne paled slightly. “Ooh. Uh. I'm gonna need a bigger arrow.”

Angel and his crew went into action. Angel hoisted his sword and charged even as Gunn moved around to flank the Beast on the right side, Lorne and Wesley on the left.

 

The Beast grinned.

 

Angel slashed the monster hard across the chest, but his sword simply bounced off the thing's rocky hide. Undaunted, the ensouled vampire pressed his attack, slashing and thrusting ineffectually. Twin twangs of released bowstrings announced the firing of Wesley and Lorne's crossbows, both to absolutely no effect. Looking both bored and amused, the Beast caught Angel's next swing in his bare hand, crushed the sword to slivers, and threw Angel through a column.

 

“We might need a new plan!” Gunn yelled as he hurled his battleaxe with all his might.

 

The Beast caught the battleaxe in the air, bent the blade in half, and then threw it back at Gunn, who barely ducked in time to avoid having his head taken off.

 

Angel rose to his feet, this time wielding two smaller axes as he rushed back into the fray even as Wesley and Lorne let loose another volley from their crossbows.

 

The Beast seized Angel by the face and hurled him into Wesley and Lorne, sending all three champions sprawling even as Gunn drew a sword and delivered a vicious but entirely ineffectual blow to the back of the Beast's head.

 

The Beast whirled around, grabbed Gunn by the throat, and tossed him across the room.

 

Gunn went for the Beast with a sword, hacking mightily at its head, again to no avail; The Beast simply grabbed Gunn by the throat and threw him across the room.

 

Wesley rose to his feet, his face set in determination as he retrieved his pump-action shotgun from within his coat. He unloaded on the beast, firing blast after blast into the creature's rocky hide. Quickly, he discovered that shots to the creature's face affected it far more (read: a tiny bit) than shots to it's body (read: not at all), and concentrated his fire there until his ammunition was expended.

 

The chamber clicked empty, and Wesley's eyes widened. The Beast chuckled wickedly as it hurled the former Rogue Demon Hunter across the room.

 

“Might want to hold the gloat, Chuckles,” said Angel as he moved forward to engage the Beast hand to hand, “Because we're just getting started.”

 

Amazingly, Angel met with more success taking the fight to hand-to-hand than any other tactic he had tried thus far. Through a truly Herculean effort, he managed to knock the Beast to its knees, after which he drew a dagger from a leg-holster and attempted to shove it into the monster's eyes.

 

Attempted.

 

The Beast caught his arm in mid-thrust, and moving with shocking speed, twisted it around and plunged the dagger into Angel's shoulder. Angel hissed in pain, and the Beast smiled knowingly.

 

“Do you really think she's safe with him?” it asked.

 

And then it hurled him off the of the building

 

“NO!” Gunn screamed.

 

A look of sheer panic flashed across Lorne's face as he watched helplessly.

 

The Beast punched the floor in the center of his square of corpses. The Eye of Fire ignited, and the shockwave probably would have blasted them from their feet had any of the Champions still been standing at that point.

 

A pillar of flames rose from the Eye of Fire, blasting up into the sky, and carrying the Beast along for the ride.

 

High above the Los Angeles area, the pillar of flames rocketed into up into a huge red glowing cloud. For a moment, all was silent...

...

...

...

 

And then, with a terrific roar, a wave of fire erupted in the sky, spreading outwards across the smog layer in a truly massive aerial blaze.

 

The rain of fire began.

 

---------------------------------

 

People came streaming off of the airplane and into the terminal, adding to the mass pandemonium that had already consumed the airport in the moment that the fire began to fall. Some ducked and covered. Others ran senselessly. Still others simply stood listlessly, staring in total shock as burning fireballs rained down from heaven.

 

Xander's sign clattered to the floor.

 

Buffy clenched her fists and stared out at the burning sky.

 

---------------------------------

 

Chaos ruled in the streets. People ran screaming from burning homes only to be engulfed in flames as the fire from above splashed down around them. Gas stations detonated violently, engulfing entire neighborhoods with fuel-laden destruction.

 

From the window of his hotel room near the university campus, Duncan MacLeod stared in awe. He had seen many things in the long years of his life, but never anything like THIS. This... raw elemental destruction.

 

As he watched the people fleeing into the streets, thinking it better to risk the fire from above than to remain in burning buildings, Duncan's thoughts drifted back to what Buffy had told him about Sunnydale - something about a huge network of underground passages.

 

Spotting a particularly large group of the helpless, with two of their number already burning, Duncan MacLeod opened the door to the outside and sprang into action.

 

-----------------------------

 

In the airport terminal, the televisions crackled a moment, and then, in unison, their images flickered out, replaced by the image of an attractive thirty-something anchorwoman.

 

“We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this Eye Witness news exclusive...”

 

Images of the rain of fire appeared on the television. The people at Eye Witness news had simply pushed their cameras to the windows of their building and begun filming.

 

The image shifts back to the anchorwoman, who is barely able to control her terror to report. She gave an overview of the situation, although there really wasn't much to report at this stage of the game beyond `fire, sky, falling from.' After saying so in far more words than were necessary, the anchorwoman clutched at her earpiece for a moment.

 

“We're going live to our eye in the sky. John, what can you see from where you are?”

 

The image changes, and we see a man sitting in the passenger seat of a helicopter. Fire rains down all around the craft, but it has thus far remained unharmed. “Susan, there are no words for something like this.” The cameraman turns, pointing the camera out the window, where a second helicopter hovers nearby. The camera pans up, revealing what looks like a cloud layer MADE out of fire. “We're just below what seems to be the source of the fire, and I don't think we'll be able to stay here long, because there have already been several near misses. It formed about ten minutes ago, rising up from somewhere in the area of the Kimball building. From what we can see, it's covering most of Los Angeles county, Orange county, Ventura county, and...”

 

John cut off as a fireball struck the other helicopter in a horrifically spectacular explosion.

 

“OH SHIT!” John screamed, “OH GOD, SWEET JESUS HAVE MERC...!”

 

The feed cut out.

 

“John, are you there?” the anchorwoman - Susan - asked worriedly. “John?” Horror shot through her features. “...John?” she asked, this time in a near whisper.

 

It was the same scene from the hills to the ocean. Rising smoke, descending fire. The roaring and crackling of the flames mixed with the moans of the wounded and the screams of the panicked and of the dying as the worst disaster in the history of California played itself out.

 

---------------------------

 

Willow finally managed to get off the plane after having been nearly trampled in the initial mad rush of bodies. All thoughts of her readiness to meet her friends banished from her mind, she raced into the terminal calling their names.

 

“There she is!” Dawn screamed in a near panic. She rushed over to the red-headed Wiccan and nearly crushed her in a frantic hug. A moment later, Xander and Buffy joined her.

 

Willow gasped and choked. “Aaah! Aaah! Air! Air!”

 

They separated. And that was when the others noticed her eyes. Pure black.

 

Xander gave her a suspicious look. “Hey black-eyed girl. I thought you weren't wearing that look anymore?”

 

“Hey, it wasn't me!” Willow said, waving her arms frantically. “Cause, you know, black eyes are kind of like an allergic reaction! Too many allergens in the air make you sneeze. Too much magic in the air makes me all black-eyed. Besides, you know me - I'm not much for the rain of fire.”

 

Xander nodded, visibly relaxing. “Yeah, I forgot. You always were more the plague of darkness type.” Xander grinned. “I'm kind of partial to the rain of frogs, myself.”

 

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Am I the only one who didn't like that movie? Waaay too much Dolly Parton. Yick.”

 

“Was she the reporter that interviewed Tom Cruise?” asked Xander.

 

In the midst of fire, death, and darkness, a silly grin bloomed on Willow's face.

 

“Nah, she ran the beauty shop across the street from the store William Macy broke into.”

 

Buffy couldn't help but smile. “Guys, middle of a majorly apocalyptic event - probably not the best time to be going all Magnolia. Let's concentrate on getting out of this alive.”

 

“Aw, come on,” said Xander, “A little fire raining down from the sky doesn't necessarily mean the end of the world...” he paused. “Except it kinda does, doesn't it? But still, it's the jokes and relentless sarcasm in the face of certain doom that makes life worth living.”

 

“Xander!”

“Right, shutting up now.”

 

Buffy crinkled her nose. “Besides, I hated both of those movies.”

 

Willow couldn't quite lose the grin. “Home, sweet home.”

 

Buffy's smile widened. Suddenly, despite the seriousness of the situation, and with the whole `Immortality' thing weighing heavily on her as well, she knew that it was going to be all right. Why? Because they were going to MAKE it all right. “Now let's do something about this whole `rain of fire' thing. Willow, do you think you could create a shield for the whole town?”

 

“I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I guess I'm big magic girl now, but I was kinda hoping not to do anything serious for a while...” she trailed off, looking out at the falling flames. “It'd be easier of I wasn't the only one casting the spell.”

 

They all nodded, their faces set with determination. “Let's get to work,” said Buffy.

 

And then Willow noticed Xander's banner. “Ooh!” she squealed happily, “Yellow crayon!”

 

Xander grinned triumphantly, and Buffy and Dawn exchanged glances.

 

-----------------------------

 

Duncan's arms were burning. Not literally on fire burning, but more the burning that comes from extended exercise. It hadn't taken long to find the entrance to what he thought was one of the underground passageways he had heard mention of in Buffy's long explanation of Slayerness. Carefully, he lowered the child to the ground and reached up to assist one of the adults in climbing down onto the pile of laboratory equipment he had assembled to reach the large crack in the ceiling - newly formed on account of the earthquake - that the other refugees were entering through. He had had to jump down on his own to set up the pile for the others to climb down. He had been helping the others down ever since, and was beginning to feel it.

 

As the last of the group was lowered safely to the ground, Duncan hopped down from the pile of lab equipment and took a look around. They were in the remains of a large laboratory. Right. So much for the underground passage theory. Several piles of vaguely human looking bones lay scattered about, and the smell of decay was thick in the air.

 

The refugees from above huddled in the far corner of the room, many of them badly burned, and most of them thoroughly shell-shocked. The words, `section 314' was painted on the wall.

 

Silently, Duncan took stock of their situation.

 

They were all alive. That was good. Several of them were injured. This was bad. There seemed to be electricity and ventilation down here. This was another good thing. There wasn't any food. That was bad.

 

One of the children whimpered, and began to cry, and Duncan felt himself shifting out of survival mode. His expression softened slightly as he looked towards the little girl.

 

“Don't cry, little one,” said Duncan, “It's going to be all right.”

 

And that was when one of the adults stepped away from the rest of the refugees and put on her vampire face.

 

“No,” the Vampire said, her fangs glinting in the light of section 314, “It's really not.”

 

------------------------------------

 

Willow, Buffy, Dawn and Xander sat in a circle in the middle of the now mostly empty airport terminal. Holding hands, with a burning candle in the middle of the circle, they had been going at it for nearly an hour, Willow chanting, and they providing energy for her to draw upon.

 

“I distinctly remember this not taking anywhere near as long when you put it up that one time with the Knights of Busynatum,” said Buffy.

 

“Byzantium,” said Dawn.

 

“Whatever. It's all just `some place sacked by the Goths' to me. The warrior barbarian goths - not the `black is the only colour too much mascara I listen to the Cure' goths.”

 

“Do they really listen The Cure?” Willow asked pausing briefly in her chant. She shook her head, “Um... oh yeah, the shield. Well, that thing with the Knights of Byzantium was just shielding one little shed. We're trying to shield a whole town. It's kinda harder. And by harder, I mean sort of like if the shed is basic algebra, this is advanced trig without a calculator.”

 

“Huh?” asked Xander.

 

“It's really really hard.”

 

“Oh. Right.”

 

Willow went back to chanting. It happened slowly at first - energy gathering. Power being redirected. The candle's flame slowly growing brighter. They were getting there. They just needed a little more time...

 

That familiar crawling pressure made itself known in Buffy's awareness; the presence of another Immortal. Buffy looked up with a horrible sinking feeling. She did NOT need this right now.

 

There, sword in hand and striding purposefully towards the spell casting scoobies, heedless of the death, fire and darkness outside, was James Moore.

 

He looked much as he had the first time they had encountered him. Clean-shaven, sandy blonde hair, brown eyes, and clothing much better suited to a colder climate. Considering the rain of fire going on outside, Buffy nearly laughed out loud at that.

 

He stopped some ten feet away from the group and scraped his sword across the tile floor. “You and I have unfinished business, Summers.”

 

Buffy stared at the other Immortal incredulously. “You have GOT to be kidding me.”

 

James didn't smile. “This is a challenge, Summers. You and I. You took by surprise the last time we fought. I didn't expect a girl your size to have such strength. It is a mistake I will not repeat.”

 

“Do you see what's going on around here!? Major apocalyptic signs, end of the world type stuff? I do NOT have time for this.”

 

James strode smoothly forward and placed the naked edge of his sword against Dawn's throat. “Make time.”

Dawn immediately went very still, staring down at the blade.

 

Buffy rose to her feet. If looks could kill...

 

Willow looked sadly at the Slayer and her Immortal challenger. “Buffy, go,” she said. “We can do this.”

 

Buffy produced her rapier, although where exactly she produced it from wasn't quite clear (there was no WAY she could have been concealing it with the outfit she was wearing), and her expression hardened.

 

----------------------------

 

Duncan reached for his sword. With a curse, he realized that it wasn't on him - he had left it in his hotel room.

 

The humans cowered against the wall, whimpering in fear as the vampire faced off against Duncan MacLeod.

 

The vampire grinned and licked her fangs. “I'll tell you what,” she said, “You're not bad looking, and you look like you're in decent enough shape. You surrender quietly, and instead of killing you, I'll sire you. Then we can feast on them together while we wait for the fire to burn itself out.”

 

Duncan dropped into a fighting stance.

 

“Right,” said the vampire, seeming pleased with his decision. “A fighter. It's always more fun when they fight.”

 

Battle was joined, fang and claw against hand and foot: vampire strength against Immortal skill.

 

And Duncan lost.

 

It wasn't hard to see why: he fought it as if he were fighting a normal human. The vulnerable spots of a human are not the vulnerable spots of a vampire.

 

Slowly, the vampire gained the advantage. And then, in an instant, it was over (or so it seemed). Duncan's eyes widened as the creature darted around behind him and pinned his arms against the sides of his body. The vampire's fangs flashed, and he felt a sharp pain in his neck as she bit down savagely and began to drink.

 

--------------------------------

 

Buffy and James stood some thirty yards from the spell casting scoobies, his new broadsword against her rapier. This time, he was ready for her supernatural strength, refusing to allow her to get close enough to bring punches and kicks into play, using the greater reach that his broadsword afforded him to great effect. Their blades flashed in the light as they dueled, and sparks flew at every meeting of metal on metal.

 

Buffy took a slash to the arm.

 

“First blood to me,” said James, with a grin.

 

The Slayer's eyes narrowed, and she thrust forward to even the score. Unfortunately, he was prepared for her attack. He caught her rapier easily in the wrist-guard of his sword and twisted his blade quickly around, attempting to disarm her.

 

Attempting being the operating word.

 

He twisted, but his sword, caught against hers, would not budge.

It was then that Buffy noticed that James' back was to the terminal window.

 

Buffy grinned.

 

She seized him by the wrist with her free hand, and charged the window. It was unbreakable glass.

 

She was the Slayer.

 

The glass shattered violently, and Buffy dropped her foe through the broken window and into the rain of fire.

 

Driven by pure desperation, James seized Buffy's arm at the last possible moment and pulled her along with him. They landed in a heap of splintered glass.

 

Fire rained down all around them as the Immortals rose to their feet, preparing to begin the next round of battle.

 

-------------------------------

 

Spurred on by desperation, Duncan reached frantically for anything he might be able to use against the vampire even as it continued to drink his immortal blood.

 

There.

 

Near the corpse of a large humanoid monster with a huge gaping chest wound... what looked like a sword, sans handle.

 

Feeling weaker by the moment, he frantically reached for the skewer... and seized it.

 

Spinning it in his hands, he shoved it into the gut of the vampire, who released him with a shriek of agony.

 

The vampire rose to its feet with a bestial snarl, her yellow eyes gleaming wickedly in the fluorescent light of the former laboratory.

 

She rushed at him, expecting another easy victory. But Duncan was not about to make the same mistake twice. As the monster came at him, he rolled to the side and shoved the skewer through her right knee. The vampire bellowed in agony, even as Duncan rolled up to his feet and slammed a vicious kick into her other knee.

 

A sick crack echoed through the chamber, and the vamp collapsed.

 

With both legs mangled, she yanked the skewer out of her right knee and flung it at the Highlander. He caught it easily in midair and shoved it through the vampire's throat.

 

For a moment, they stood there, staring into each other's eyes, vampire and Immortal. And then Duncan jerked the skewer savagely from side to side. And then, with most of the connecting tissue having been severed by the skewer, he kicked the vamp's head off.

 

As the vampire burst apart in a cloud of dust, Duncan collapsed.

 

-------------------------------

 

The two Immortals charged, meeting in a furious clash of blades that sent blue sparks flying in every direction. Slash, counter, thrust, parry, back and forth in a dazzling dance of death, even as the burning sky loosed its vengeance down upon the world.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Buffy asked as she ducked underneath a swing that would have taken her head off had it connected. “The world is going to end unless I stop it - EVERYONE is going to die. What does your Game matter in the face of that?”

 

A fireball struck Buffy dead on, and she went down hard. Thinking quickly, she rolled out of the way of another strike that would have decapitated her, and kept on rolling until she had extinguished her burning clothing.

 

James loomed over her, sword held high. The stink of singed flesh and burned hair was heavy in the air.

 

“The Game is ALL that matters, Summers. Mortals die. That's their nature. It doesn't matter if it's a rain of fire or a rain of bullets that kills them. They live only to die. We are eternal. *I* am eternal. When the sun grows cold, and the last warmth of the earth dies out, I will linger yet. When all else has turned to ash, I will endure. And so will you. Within me.”

 

Sickened horror filled the Slayer at those words. She looked upon James Moore, and she knew pity. But also rage. “WHY!?”

 

“Power. In the end, there can be only One.”

 

James brought his sword down.

 

In that moment, Buffy stopped holding back. Her upwards slash met his downward, and with a tremendous metallic clang, his broadsword went flying out of his hands, clattering noisily as it hit the runway. She hamstrung and gutted him almost casually. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony.

 

Buffy raised her sword. The moment of truth had come. All the reasons why this man needed to die echoed endlessly in her mind, but they were all of them hollow. All but one. He had threatened to hurt Dawn.

 

Blood roared in her ears, and then, as if from far away, she heard Willow's voice.

 

“Enemies, endings, fly and fall,”

 

Buffy brought the sword down.

 

“...Encircling arms now raise the wall!”

 

She hit nothing. A bubble of invisible force expanded outwards from the airport terminal even as she swung for Moore's head. It passes through Buffy harmlessly, but when it hit James, it simply disintegrated him. A foul smell lingered in the air for a moment, and then nothing. The bubble rapidly expanded to cover the whole airport... and then it rose, expanding further, encasing the whole of Sunnydale in its shimmering glow.

 

Lightning flashed. The quickening rose from the spot where James had ceased to be. It surged towards Buffy... only to stop short. A barrier. It flowed up and all around the shield that had encased her, even as lightning burst out from the coiling pale white energy in tremendous blasts. Cement shattered. Holes were blasted in the nearby airplanes. Sound and fury.

 

In the end, it could not reach her. The quickening faded, and with it, the shield.

Buffy dropped to her knees, and Willow appeared at her side. “Willow, what did you do?” she asked, horrified.

 

Tears streamed down Willow's face. “I knew...” the red-headed witch sobbed. “I knew if you killed him, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself... I don't want to lose you, Buffy.”

 

Buffy spoke in a near whisper. “So you killed him.”

 

Willow nodded.

 

“But... what about YOU, Will?”

 

Their eyes met, the Slayer and the Witch, both horrified by what had just happened. Willow had killed again, and Buffy... had been ready to kill a human. WOULD have killed a human, had Willow not done it first.

 

Buffy broke down and wept.

 

And high above, the rain of fire splashed harmlessly against the barrier that now protected Sunnydale.

 

-------------------------------

 

It lasted until morning. They were already calling it the worst disaster in the history of California. The President himself had declared a state of emergency for Southern California. FEMA was brought in, the National Guard was mobilized, plus the air force and the marines from the local military bases, and just about every fire department in the state of California, plus quite a few from out of state.

 

Damage was widespread, and although Sunnydale had been saved, several towns and cities would not be so fortunate. Before the last fires were finally extinguished, Azusa, Glendora, Orange, Simi Valley, Torrance, and Fullerton had all burned completely to the ground.”

 

*We see images of Duncan leading his band of refugees back to the surface, blinking owlishly in the morning light*

 

*Buffy offers Willow her hand, and Willow takes it, and rises to her feet. The two of them walk back towards the terminal, the sunrise at their backs.*

 

Numerous explanations were offered. Some said that the cloud of pollution over the area had gotten so thick and volatile that it had actually combusted. Quite a few more decided that this was a sign that the end really was nigh. Attendance at churches was never quite so high as in the months following the rain of fire.

 

The talk shows filled up with writers of books along the lines of the Left Behind series trying to explain why they were Left Behind, where they were in the end times timeline, and what people could expect to happen next. The official statement was that the whole thing was a freak meteor shower, but very few people actually believed it. Certainly no one guessed that it had all begun with a girl.

 

With Conner lying fast asleep at her side, Cordelia smiled. Everything was going according to plan. There. It was begun; an impossible birth from an impossible birth.

 

The time had come at last.

 

END CHAPTER 07

 

---------------------------

 

Next: Those Who Seek Truth...

 

Like it? Love it? Hate it? Let me know. But most importantly, let me know specifically what it is you like/love or hate and why. :)