Of Birds and Slayers

The Great Battle. Shannah couldn’t believe it was happening. They were all at the brand new Sunnydale High, ready to face the thousands of Turok-Hans. Well, some were more ready than others.

“Okay, potentials, in the basement. Follow Faith, Shannah and Spike.” Buffy ordered.

“If you have to go to the bathroom, it's to your left. If you don't have to go to the bathroom, picture what you're about to face. Better to go now.” Xander ‘Patch’ Harris advised the potentials.

“Willow, Robin’s office is this way, you go with Giles. Anya, Andrew, you take the north hall. Xander, you stay with Dawn, keep the atrium.” The Slayer turned to look at Principal Wood. “Can you take the lounge on your own?”

“Principal! I will stay with you!” A voice came from behind. It was Amanda, a tall and skinny potential born in Sunnydale. “Um if you don’t mind Buffy...” she looked like a little mouse.

“Okay, Amanda, you stay up there.” The blonde replied.

Meanwhile, Faith was leading the group to the seal. Shannah was holding tightly Kennedy’s hand.

“Are you okay?” the young girl asked.

“Yeah...I’m just worried about you, and I have a bad feeling.” The Phoenix replied. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Chill out Birdy, you’re gonna make a slaughter!” Faith laughed. “It’s time for you to change, by the way.” Shannah nodded and began her transformation. Some potentials were still impressed by The Phoenix, they were dumbfounded. Kennedy stared into those black orbs and touched her girlfriend’s face.

“I love you!” she whispered.

“Love you more...” Shannah replied and leant to kiss her lover. Faith smiled.

‘Finally she found the one she needed.’ She thought.

Buffy joined Faith and the girls into the basement room where the Seal of Danzalthar was located. They formed a circle around the edge of the seal. Time had come, they were going to open it, entering the Hellmouth. The blond Slayer stood beside Faith.

“You’d better get out of it alive or I’ll kick your ass!” she muttered to the brunette who just smiled and gave her a knife. She cut her palm and poured her blood over the seal. One by one, each girl in the room did the same, and soon, the Hellmouth opened.

The group arrived in a kind of cliff. It was a gigantic cave, and they were there, like ants, crawling. The Turok-Hans. The Slayer stared down at the thousands of ubbervamps in front of her.

“I'm not worried!” she said, psyching herself up as she looks around slack-jawed. “I’m not worried!” Around her, the potentials were starting panicking, some of them were even praying.

“We’re gonna live, we’re gonna live, we’re gonna live” Vi was chanting like a lunatic girl. Beside her, Shannah and Kennedy were staring deeply at the enemies, without saying a word. Kennedy tightened her grip on her lover’s hand before releasing it.

“I'm not worried...as long as Willow can work her spell before they-” Buffy stopped when the Turok-Hans looked up to them. “see us...” Thunderous growls filled the cave and the snarling army rushed toward the cliff.

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Inside the Principal’s office, Willow was chanting silently to herself, invoking ancient powers. Giles was pacing around, ready to kill her if anything went wrong.

“Oh...my...goddess” The witch suddenly exclaimed, and the scythe on the floor flared with a brilliant white light as tremendous power flowed from the weapon into Willow’s hands. The Slayer’s power.

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(Hatebreed – Live for this)

In the cave, Willow’s spell hit the girls, and they were not anymore potential slayers. Kennedy gasped when the power penetrated her body. She was a Vampire Slayer. The horde of raging Turok-han surged up and over the edge of the cliff toward Buffy, Faith, Spike and the team of new Slayers. Shannah flew off with two fireballs in her hands and killed several vamps in a minute.

“These guys are dust” she heard a confident Vi saying as the first wave leaped up over
the edge and attacked. The girls were fighting like they never had before, almost as if they were Slayers since they were born. Kennedy was beheading a Turok-Han when she saw Shannah flying over her and ripping off two ubbervamps’ heads. All around them the battles raged, they were fighting for their lives, for the world. After a moment, Amanda came into play with the Slayer’s scythe and gave it to Buffy.

Kennedy was suddenly rocked backward by a vicious blow to the head as a Turok-han broke free from the melee and attacked her. She kicked it in the chest and brought her elbow down on its neck, snapping it in two.

“I could get used to this!” She smiled.

“Given!” she heard The Phoenix’s voice next to her. Her girlfriend was throwing fireballs to the next wave of enemies. A few meters away, Spike was snapping the neck of a Turok-han, then he staggered backward as some unseen force had hit him. He looked down at the medallion around his neck, and touched it. It burnt his flesh in a sec.

“Buffy! Whatever this thing does, I think it’s-” he couldn’t finish his sentence as a harsh pain struck him. He shrieked with pain, but no one could hear him in this noise.

Meanwhile, Shannah was having once again this bad feeling. She turned to see Kennedy. She was doing fine, killing the vamps one by one. The Phoenix flew off and noticed Buffy lying on the floor.

“Fuck!” she cursed and rushed towards the blond girl.

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Faith was enjoying this. She loved killing bad guys. She hurled a Turok-han off of her and turned around. She froze at the sight of blond hair on the ground.

“Buffy!” she screamed, ran towards the fallen Slayer and knelt next to her. Soon, Shannah joined her.

“What happened?”

Buffy raised her head and grimaced in pain.

“Hold the line!” she said, holding the scythe to Faith.

“Don’t you dare leaving me B!” Faith shouted as tears were running down her cheeks “Not now!”

Shannah took the scythe and gave it to Kennedy, who quickly cut in half several Turok-Hans.

“Come on, you can’t let down!” Faith was crying. “You can’t leave me alone...” A Turok-Han came from behind and was about to stab her but she broke her neck in a sec.

“I’m sorry Faith...” Buffy mouthed.

“Shut up! Don’t say that, it’s not over yet!” The Rogue Slayer shook her blond girl violently.

(Apocalyptica – Hope)

Several meters away, Rona was driven to the ground beneath five of the ubbervamps.

“Rona!” Kennedy yelled and threw the scythe towards the black girl. They were too many. Kennedy looked at the bodies of her friends around her. Amanda, Chao-ahn. The Turok-Hans didn’t stop coming.

“Buffy come on! You have to get up! I love you” Faith shouted through the cries of pain and the growls. The blonde girl stared deeply at her.

“I love you too.” Faith was taken aback, it was the first time Buffy was saying the three words to her.

“You’re not saying this because you’re gonna die uh?”

“No.” Buffy pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and stood up. “We’re gonna live.” Rona slashed the neck of a Turok-Han with the scythe and tossed it back to Buffy who whips it around in a 180° arc, taking out half a dozen Turok-Han. She drove several others back over the edge of the precipice to slam into the cavern floor far below. All around Buffy, the Slayers found renewed strength and determination, beating back their attackers one at a time. In one fluid motion, Vi raked her stake through the abdomen of one vampire, then jumped and brought it down through the neck of another. Kennedy sent a Turok-Han reeling with a roundhouse kick and followed through with her sword, decapitating another of the snarling beasts. Shannah, on her side, was attacked by a dozen of enemies at the same time, she was slightly injured, but managed to kill them all in thirty seconds.

All of a sudden, a surge of energy welled up within Spike.

“Oh, bollocks!” he exclaimed as the white-hot energy coalesced around the amulet and rocketed upwards, punching a hole up through the ceiling of the cavern and through the basement of the school. “Buffy!” the vampire called. The blond Slayer turned and opened her eyes wide when she saw him. Before she could move, the medallion suddenly flared into life, lit with the intensity of a million suns. Streams of pure solar energy radiated outward in a circle like beams from a lighthouse. The energy pulsed sweep the cavern, destroying every Turok-han it touched. One by one, they were all burnt to cinders by the light. Buffy ran to Spike’s side as the cavern around them began to shake. Chunks of rock and pointed stalactites tumbled from the ceiling as the ground lurched beneath their feet.

“Everybody out now!” Faith shouted and the Slayers followed her. She stayed back to help the injured girls and to watch over Buffy.

“Go to the bus, Shannah lead them!” The Phoenix nodded. Upstairs, there were Bringers everywhere. The Phoenix broke the neck of one of them only by punching him.

“That’s cool! You think I can do that?” Vi asked her with curiosity.

“Try!” the brunette said with a groan while stabbing another evil blind guy. Vi walked towards a Bringer and punched him as hard as she could, she let out a cry of joy when she heard the sound of bones breaking. On their way, the Slayers found Andrew lying on the floor, alive, and the others Scoobies.

“Everybody! This way!” Giles screamed at them when they emerged of the school.

“Where are Buffy and Faith?” Willow asked, worried.

“They’re gonna make it!” Shannah answered, dragging one Slayer in her arms. The front of the school exploded in a shower of dust and debris.

“Have you seen Anya?” Xander shouted through the noise. Nobody answered, nobody had heard him. Shannah rushed towards Giles.

“Go! They’ll come out!” and Giles drove away. The school bus raced through the deserted town at full speed, barely staying ahead of the onrushing destruction. Xander was taking care of the injured ones, applying bandages where necessary. Rona was in bad shape and fading fast. Blood streaming down her own face, Vi shook her friend, yelled at her, trying to bring her back to consciousness.

“Look at me! This is nothing! Stay awake! This is nothing!”

Near them, Andrew was sitting and staring out the window, bewildered and mumbling to himself.

“Why didn’t I die?”

Behind them, the buildings were falling away as the town was slowly sucked into the Hellmouth. Shannah was looking at them, and she spotted two dark figures running towards them.

“They’re behind us!” The brunette yelled. And they heard two big noises on the top of the bus. Buffy and Faith.

“They made it...I told you they would make it!” Shannah began to laugh, releasing the pressure.

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The Chosen Two were exhausted. They were covered with blood and dust. They were contemplating the big hole which once was a city called Sunnydale.

“I don’t understand. What did this?” Giles asked.

“Spike” the blond Slayer answered with a small smile.

In front of the bus, Shannah was changing back to her human form.

“You know, I’d prefer to be a Phoenix! Come on guys look at her! She hasn’t any wounds, and I saw Turok-Hans stabbing her several times!” Vi exclaimed. It made everybody laugh. The Phoenix felt someone on her back, she turned around and find herself in Kennedy’s arms. They stayed in that position for a long time.

Several meters away, Faith, Giles, Dawn, Willow and Xander were all gathered around Buffy on the edge of the crater.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us.” Giles was saying.

“Can I push him in?” Faith asked casually.

“You’ve got my vote.” The redhead replied, jokingly.

“I just want to sleep, yo. For like a week!” Faith stated, Buffy looked at her and raised her eyebrows suggestively. A goofy smile appeared on the Rogue Slayer’s face. They were both alive, and now they could live the life they wanted. Buffy turned to look once again at the crater while the others kept on talking.

“Yeah, Buffy. What are we going to do now?” Her little sister asked. She didn’t have a clue. She felt a presence beside her and noticed a feather flying around, carried away by the wind. She smiled at Shannah who smiled back. Their job here was done.

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So, here's the end of the first part of this fic.