The Ravages Of Hell

FIC: Ravages Of Hell (3/?)

Ears still ringing, Angel rolled to his feet. Spinning around, he saw a quintet of bald, one-eyed bipeds with spiked tails and the physiques of WWE wrestlers. Recognising them as Baldara demons, Angel grimaced. They were dumb, basically just low-level thugs, but very strong and tough.

Gathering his wits, Angel leapt into the air, dropkicking the lead Baldara in the chest. “Shit!” he cursed as his feet slammed into their target and he bounced off the monster’s armour-plated chest. Hitting the ground on his side, he sprang back to his feet just in time to sway away from a three pronged claw strike at his throat.

How did you kill an armour-plated demon, Angel wondered as he snatched up a letter opener from the wreckage that had been his desk and flung it at the monster’s violently green eye. The moment the Baldara made to slap it away, Angel dived forward in a baseball slide, his feet smashing into his adversary’s shins. The Baldara let out a high-pitched scream before pitching forward. Angel rolled away from the plummeting monster, not wanting to get stuck under its six hundred pound body. Standing, he kicked the rising Baldara in its face, knocking it back down to the carpet. Before the monster had chance to rise again, Angel grabbed his desk and flipped it onto the creature’s head, crushing it like a melon.

“That hurt!” Angel vamped out as a claw tore through his left shoulder from behind, blood gushing out of the wound. Ignoring the throbbing pain, he twisted around to face his attacker and snapped a right cross into its face, knocking its head to the side.

The monster grunted and swung at him again. He swayed away from the attack before leaping into the air, wrapping his feet around his attacker’s head and twisting. The creature’s column-like neck snapped like a twig and the monster fell soundlessly to the ground.

Landing on his feet, Angel just managed to duck a decapitating claw-slash, instead taking the blow on his forehead, opening a nasty gash. Blood dripping into his eyes, he staggered backwards.

Suddenly the monster exploded into flames before disintegrating to dust by his feet. Wiping the blood out of his eyes, he blinked at the lithe brunette in front of him, his mouth dropping open in recognition. “Gwen?”

The thief smirked. “Hi Angel, pleased to see me?”

Angel opened his mouth to reply, and then groaned as he noticed something. Another wrecked office, what was this, the fourth? “Office insurance sucks!”

* * *

Her heart pounding with a familiar mixture of fear and excitement, Faith leapt off the fire escape, plummeting towards the demonic trio. Her eyes widened when one of her opponents looked up, and shot out a five-foot long forked tongue. “Shit!” she roared. “Why can’t I meet a stud with a tongue like that?”

Still in mid-flight, she twisted away from the tongue and made to grab it. “FUCK!” she screamed as acid coating the tongue blistered her palm. Tears blurring her vision, she thrust her hunting knife through the tongue. She grinned slightly at the monster’s answering screech. “Like that mother-fucker?”

Landing on the cobbled ground with her knees bent to minimise the impact, she spun away from on of the assassins’ charge, leaving a foot behind for her would-be assailant to trip over. Her eyes widened as she noticed something gleaming on the monster’s hand. “Oh cra-, ah fuck!”

She screamed as her back exploded in blazing agony, her body arching in an instinctive attempt to pull away from the pain. Shaking it off, she saw the forked tongued monster, a grey-skinned giant toad, leaping at her, powered by his massively muscled hind legs. Reaching up, she grabbed hold of the monster’s shoulders, and flung it into the air, impaling it on the fire-escape ladder above.

Head swimming from a combination of blood loss and pain, she turned to face the two surviving demons. One was a short monkey-like creature, the knuckles of its long, ropy arms scraping the ground, kinda reminded her of some of the losers she’d boned back in the day. The other was a dark-skinned, powerfully-built vampire. The vampire leered at her, his lips parting to reveal his fangs. “In three centuries I ain’t never killed a Slayer. Would have done before if I knew how pretty you were.”

“Oh yeah? I’m flattered. But I ain’t dead yet,” Faith answered with a wolfish smirk. Despite her bluster, Faith knew she was chest-deep in the shit. Out-numbered, with what felt like a knife stuck in her lower back, things did not look or feel good.

Suddenly the monkey launched itself at her, its hands wildly flailing. Grunting with the effort, she turned sideways and thrust kicked the demon in the chest.

The demon crashed into the side of a near-by dumpster, bouncing off to the ground. Even as the demon rose shakily, Faith grabbed a near-by trash-can lid and flung it like a Frisbee. The steel lid sliced through the monster’s neck, sending its head flying through the air.

“Ah!” Faith screamed as the knife in her back was twisted. Eyes tearing, she fell to her knees, the fall’s impact reverberating through her already tortured body. “Oh god,” she wheezed.

“So pretty.” The vampire purred in her ear. Faith’s skin crawled as his hands began to caress her body. “Oh, I’m going to have fun with -.”

The demon grunted as she drove an elbow into his groin. Taking advantage of the offered respite, she staggered to her feet and turned to face the demon. “You want some of this honey,” she struggled to take a breath, “come get some.”

The beast vamped out. “Gladly.” The monster leapt towards her.

And right onto the wooden splinter she’d picked up off the ground. The vampire’s eyes widened a half-second before he exploded into dust. “Well that was easy,” Faith blustered. And then her world went black.

* * *

Xander watched as Amy paced the ground in front of him before glancing around their surroundings, a deserted landing strip, one of dozens perhaps hundreds dotted around the continent used by poachers and smugglers alike. “Pacing won’t get the plane here any quicker.”

His mild comment earned him a scathing glare. “We have to hurry,” the Wicca declared.

He shuffled uncomfortably under the Wicca’s intense gaze. Having been on the bad side of one rampaging witch, he really didn’t want to get on Amy’s bad side. Swallowing down the unease that was choking him, he spoke. “What’s so important about this -.”

He was interrupted by the sight of their plane taxing down onto the solitary landing strip. “Thank god,” he stood. “Let’s get out of-,” his voice trailed off at Amy’s ghostly white face. “What’s up?”

The Wicca pushed the book into his hands. “Get this to Giles. There’s demons coming.”

Skin crawling, Xander looked into the surrounding shadows. Failing to see anything, he returned his gaze to his friend. “There’s nothing there,” he declared. “And if something does turn up,” he reached for his sword, “we’ll fight them off.”

“No,” Amy shook her head, the Wicca’s face pale in the moonlight. “You can’t fight them. I’ll hold them off.”

“What!” Xander exclaimed. “No way. I don’t leav-.” Amy nodded to one of the Slayers behind. Something smashed into the back of his head and then nothing.

* * *

Amy nodded as Rona caught Xander’s body as he fell forward. “Get him out of here,” she ordered.

Vi looked at her. “Are you sure?”

Remembering the promise she’d made to Willow, she nodded. “Just go!”

The moment the two Slayers hurried towards the plane, carrying Xander’s limp body between them, Amy swung back to the bushes surrounding the tiny airfield. Wiping away the tears rolling down her face, she readied herself. “Oh god,” she whispered hoarsely. She didn’t want to die but neither did she want to fail again. She closed her eyes, centring herself, allowing the magic to flow through her.

Her concentration was shattered by an ear-splitting roar. Her breath caught as she opened her eyes to see a ten foot tall, rail-thin, grey-scaled creature with staring black eyes and talons hanging from each of its six arms standing some two hundred yards away. “Oh goddess.”

Gathering herself, she sent a surged of magic towards the beast. The monster let out a high-pitched screech before exploding in a mist of yellow viscera. Amy bit her lip as she saw about a dozen of the monsters clamber out of the bush and charge her.

Amy took a breath as she allowed the black magic enter her, turning her clothes, hair, and eyes as black as the night itself, and empowering her more than she’d ever been before. She’d sworn she’d never use the dark arts again, but in a few minutes it wouldn’t matter. Behind her she heard the plane taking off. She smirked, she’d kept her word, made it up to Willow.

Amy unleashed her power, obliterating demon after demon. Her eyes widened as one of the demons made it through her attacks. Before she could react, his claws ripped through her.

* * *

“Michelle! Pass me that table cloth!” Buffy ordered, one eye on the hovering helicopter. She nodded her thanks at the French Slayer as she did as she was told.

“What are you going to do?”

Buffy gestured Dawn to silence even as she tied a lasso and flung it towards the fire extinguisher fastened to the wall beside the bar. She grinned as the lasso fell perfectly around the extinguisher’s neck. “Always wanted to be a cow-girl,” she muttered before yanking.

Slayer strength tore the extinguisher from the wall, taking with it some plaster, and sent it rolling towards her. “Bella! What are you doing?” yelled the Immortal over the threatening rattle of machine gun-fire.

”This!” Buffy exclaimed. Rising the moment the guns fell silent, she flung the extinguisher at the helicopter’s pilot with all her might.

The cockpit’s glass shattered under the force of an enraged Slayer’s attack; a half-second later, the makeshift missile smashed into the pilot’s helmet en-route to smashing into his skull, splattering the cockpit with blood even as the man’s neck snapped. The two gunmen’s faces contorted in horror as the helicopter dropped like a stone.

“Yes!” Buffy turned to her companions, her elation dying as she saw the carnage wrecked in an attempt to kill her. Twisted bodies lay all over, their blood drenching the carpet, pain-filled wails and hysterical sobs from the injured filled the air. An empty feeling forming in her stomach, she turned to the others. “Whoever did this, dies,” she declared.