Episode 87: Signs of the Times

Rain of Fire

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by 3D Master (3dmaster@telfort.nl)

Disclaimer: see Episode 79.

Faith landed at the back entrance of the Hyperion and stepped inside, sighing dejectedly.  It was day; and she returned from another round across LA after school.  Inside her school friends were waiting on the round couch, while Fred was manning the phones.  Pike was sitting in his wheel chair, standing up, and sitting back down, then standing, and sitting; training his chi connection with his legs below his back injury.  Lorne was behind the counter near Fred, manning the second phone.  Faith didn’t see her boyfriend; he was probably in his office, and neither did she see Angel, who was probably upstairs with his baby son.  Cordelia was sitting behind her desk onward from the counter in the public office, writing things down.

“Nothing.  I’ve been going around LA regularly for a week now, and I can’t find anything Cordelia, apart from the real Cordelia,” Faith said in defeat, slumping forward to her friends and dumping herself between Tiffany and Archie.  “Nothing, nada, no magic use, no energy void she might be using to hide; zilch.  A big zero by zero.”

Cordelia got up with an annoyed face, while Archie said, “Don’t worry, Faith.  I’m sure the demon will rear its ugly face sooner or later, Faith, then you can kick its ass, and it’ll know it shouldn’t have messed with the big, bad Super Slayer.”  Archie grinned, and tapped Faith’s knee, the words and the gesture making Faith fly.

“Ugly face!?” Cordelia exclaimed indignant, leaning down on the counter, peering at the four.  “My face is /not/ ugly, it is in fact, very beautiful.”  Archie smiled apologetically, Cordelia ignored him and continued, “And I don’t see why /you’re/ the one complaining, Faith. I’m the one getting doppelgangered here.  Who knows what demon me is doing out there.  I’ll bet its slutting around, screwing every demon that walks.  Soon we’ll not just have helpless people calling us, but also the demon community seeing if they can book Cordelia Chase - Demon Prostitute!”  The four looked at her incredulously.  “Yes, laugh it up.  I’m the one who has to live with it.  Dennis has decided that I should say a password and say something only I could know before I can get into my own home.  And all of you, don’t think I don’t notice you looking, and checking to make sure it’s really me every time I walk in!”  Cordelia sighed dramatically, then frowned and went on a more serious not.  “And /I/ got nothing, Faith.  I’m the Seer, and I get my own double, but do you see a vision coming on?  Do you see me grab my head?  Do you see me writing down something only I can see?  No!  Of course not!  I get nothing, not a glimmer, not even a feeling.  I’ve got my own doppelganger and I get not even a hazy sliver of a vision.  Which just goes to show you, the bastards upstairs are a lot worse than just bastards.  They can’t yank our chains anymore, and hang nice little candies in front of us to follow, and they promptly quit with the friggin’ visions!  They don’t give a shit about what happens us.”

Everyone was silent at that; apart from the two at the phones.  “Right, uhuh, got it.  We’ll be there right away, ma’am,” Fred finished, and hung up the phone.  “A haunting.  A ghost.   We don’t get those often,” Fed said with a smile as she looked at her notepad.

“Poltergeists!  Ever since I’ve been fighting the darkness, I’ve wanted to face one those!” Pike exclaimed with a big grin.  “I’m coming with you!” he told Fred with a smile.

“I’m in pain here,” Cordelia muttered distressed at the happy tone.

Fred nodded with a smile and went to get some supplies: most notably some ingredients for a cleansing ritual, while Pike went over to the weapons closet to pick out a sword.  Lorne put his phone down, looking with a frown at his notepad, and then it ran again.  He put it on hold though, and Faith said, “Hey, Pike.  You think you’re up to it?”  As Pike turn to look at her she gestured to his back.

“Hey, it isn’t like I’m going to be gone for a whole day,” he said with a smile, “I can handle an hour on the road.”

Faith nodded and Angel came swiftly down the stairs.  “Alright, Connor is asleep, did I miss anything?”

“Bleeding wall,” Lorne said with quite a bit of surprise, pointing at his notepad, making everyone look at him with wide eyes.

Except Angel, he looked excited, and said, “Really?  Is it some dead rats behind the wall? A demon infest wall that broke puss.  Or a wound to the fabric of reality?”

Everyone looked at him, and Lorne repeated, “Bleeding wall.  Look, Angel-cakes, honey, there isn’t all that much you can gleam from a phone call about a bleeding wall.  You’ll have to find that out for yourself.”

“Okay, whose my partner?” Angel asked looking around.

“Sorry, oh great brooding one,” Pike said with an excited grin as Fred found her way next to him.  “I’ve got already got poltergeist duty!”

“Great brooding one?” Angel asked the guy annoyed, but not losing his good mood yet. Faith and her friends chuckled.  Pike just shrugged as he and Fred went for the coat rack and the exit.  “Cordelia, how about it?”

Cordelia shrugged, and sighing she said, “Fine.  Might as well.  If I run into my demon self, I’ll kick her ass for ruining my life!”  Angel frowned, and looked questioningly at Faith and her friends.

“Don’t ask,” Zoey said to him with a slight smile.

Angel went to grab himself a weapon along with Cordelia.  “Hey!” Angel exclaimed surprised.  “Where’s my favorite sword!?”

“Right here!” Pike called, sword high in the air.  Angel turned and watched Pike hold it up for a moment more then put it in his coat and stepped out of the hotel with Fred, glaring. “Whoever gets there first, man!”  Faith, Archie and Lorne smiled, while Tiffany and Zoey giggled.

*****

“And you say it’s making strange noises?” Pike asked just a little excited.

“Yes, strange screeching noises, a long with the occasional moan, or wail, or something,” the middle-aged women answered who led Pike and Fred through the fancy house.  The stairs they had just climbed, and the hallway had a fantastic walking rug on the bottom; looking a little Persian.

“Well, no fear, ma’am,” Fred said with a smile to the woman, “we do this all the time. We’ll deal with this ghost in no time.”

“You sure, because I was half expecting big technological back packs and energy blasters, and-” the woman said nervously.

Pike held up his hand as a halting gesture, and said with a smile, “This is not the movies, ma’am, we’ll handle this.”

The woman nodded nervously and they reached the end of the hallway, right in front of a door.  “It’s in there,” she said nervously, making a quick point, before pulling her hand back to in front of her stomach.

“We’ll take it from here,” Pike said with a smile, and opened the door.  The woman nodded and turned away, while Pike and Fred entered with a smile.

Inside, as they closed the door behind them, they encountered a rather big, make that huge, bathroom.  Lovely rugs, beige to pink color scheme, shiny toilet, huge counter with sink. To the right was a big, glass encapsulated shower cubicle, and all the way to the front, was a very large bath tub, bubble bath no doubt.  “Wow,” Pike said with big eyes, “I think I’ve seen apartments billed for families smaller than this.”

“Yeah,” Fred said with a wry smile, walking forward to the middle of the bathroom, which took her quite a while.  “I could see myself bathing her though; a honey and milk bath.”

Pike chuckled, and joined her as they looked around.  “You guys really do this all the time?” he asked looking up, down, and all around to see if he could spot anything supernatural, extending his senses.

Fred, doing the same, and not finding anything with hers, answered, “Actually, this is the first ghost.  But I know the rituals, so this should be-”  She was interrupted by a wail, and then a groaning sound.

“Whoa!” Pike said excitedly and looked around as the sounds returned and grew stronger.  He frowned, as Fred next to him did the same.  “Why don’t I sense anything?”

“I don’t know, and where are the sounds coming from?” Fred asked with a frown as the sounds grew in intensity.

“From everywhere it seems, it sounds like wails, skittering, and . . .” Pike started, looking around wildly to find whatever it was.  “I do sends life force though, lots of it . . . no, lots of /them/, but very very small.”

“Yeah,” Fred said, looking around wildly, when suddenly there was a groan from the shower cubicle.  They turned and looked inside, seeing rats crawl out of the drain, and scampering around the basin.  The two looked horrified and there was a crack.  The turned around and looked into the cabinet that had glass doors.  A makeup pot was broken, and rats crawled around everywhere.  Suddenly the screeching increased in volume, and they started crawling from everywhere: bath tub, toilet, holes even cracked into the ceiling and some of them fell down . . . on top of Fred and Pike.

“IIEEEH!  Get them off me!” Fred screamed out loud, wiggling her hand in disgust and turning her rat-covered side to Pike.

“SHIT!” Pike exclaimed, tossing one rat off of him, and then slammed the one on Fred off of her shoulder, as the screeching continued and more rats came pouring into the bathroom. “Let’s get out of here!” Pike said and quickly pushed Fred to the door, who happily obliged. They yanked the door open, jumped outside, and slammed the door closed behind them.

They sighed in relief, and then swallowed in disgust, seeing the woman stand two meters away from them.  “Did you get it?” she asked.

They started to walk resolutely forward, and Fred told her, “You might wanna look into an exterminator.”

“/Rat/ exterminator.  We don’t do rats,” Pike clarified the woman as he briskly passed her by.  He paused as Fred slowed down.

“We won’t charge you for this - consult, ma’am,” Fred said friendly, but with a smile born from disgust on her face.  She handed over an Angle Investigation business card, and told her, “In the future, try to be more certain the problem is supernatural.  Goodbye, ma’am, and good luck.”  Then she and Pike rushed out the house as quickly as they could.

*****

“The snake came out of what part of your body?” Lorne asked incredulously, looking down at his notepad.  Next to him Cordelia was manning another phone, making her own observations. “Well, if nothing more came out, and all’s well, I would say that you are safe.  Call us if you have anything else, we’re rather swamped.”  Lorne put the phone down with some disgust. “Well, kids, I think we can officially say, we hit the land of ‘oh, my god, this is bad’.”

Faith put the phone down, and said, “Nothing but omens of the coming apocalypse, all quickly in a row.  I’d say, we’ve gone a little further than that Lorne; something like, ‘run for your lives, we’re screwed’.”

“That would have been my next suggestion,” Lorne nodded in agreement.

“You guys are joking, right?” Tiffany asked from her place on the couch, where she was doing her homework.  “Right?”

“Well, exaggerating, just a smidgen,” Lorne replied, putting his index finger very close to his thumb.

The front door opened and Fred and Pike stepped inside.  The occupants of the lobby looked over, and Lorne said, “If it isn’t the Ghostbusters.  You did that rather fast, usually taking care of a poltergeist takes a little longer.”

“No poltergeist,” Pike said defeatedly, slowly walking over as Fred passed him by at speed.

“Just rats, I now officially hate rats,” Fred said with a bad mood, and then noticed the atmosphere in the room.  “What?”

Angel and Cordelia returned through the back entrance, and Angel said, “I’ll tell you what, it was definitely a wound to the fabric of reality.  We closed it with a quick spell, not twent-five meters onward we came across a fountain - boiling.”

“Indeed,” Wesley announced as he came from his office with certainty.  “I have been compiling events and locations via the tv, the radio, the internet, and our local supernatural-fighting contacts ever since this morning,” Wesley continued, walking resolutely to the counter where the phones still rung, holding up a brown folder.  After slapping it on the counter he said, “I’ve been trying to find some rhyme or reason behind them, but other than portents of doom, I have not been able to find much in anything, no prophecies either.  The only thing I haven’t been able to do yet, is plot them all on a map.”

“Getting a map,” Faith said and got a map, placing it on the counter.  She and Lorne immediately went to work; getting a pen and putting the positions of it.

“Ah, damn it, damn it,” Fred cursed uncharacteristically and walked over to the front entrance and the hell jacket.  Tiffany, Archie and Zoey watched the proceedings with some trepidation and interest.

“The real problem with this stuff is,” Angel added into the mix, at which point there was a heavy splat, then a waling chirping.  Fred especially was startled as it was near her.  Everyone looked as Fred opened the door and saw a small bird lying on the floor.

She squatted down and with a frown, and said, “That’s strange . . .”

“Close the door!” Archie suddenly exclaimed making everyone look up, and Fred inside while doing so.

“But it could still be . . .”

“CLOSE THE DOOR!” everyone called out hastily at the same time, pointing.  Fred whipped her head left, her eyes widened, and she scrambled to get back inside.  Once there, she slammed the door closed.  A moment later there was a heavy sound of splats, flapping wings, and the occasional bird song or whimper was the only thing audible to non-enhanced hearing.  As quickly as the birds came, so quickly they disappeared.

“That’s not a good sign, is it?” Fred asked nervously, looking around the building, hoping all the windows were closed.

“Lorne, Faith,” Cordelia said with a dead man’s grin, “You can add us to your lovely map.”  The two nodded and Lorne went to do that.

For a moment all was silent, as the fighters and Faith’s friends let the event sink into their brains, all of them looking extremely worried.  Finally Pike broke the silence.  Raising his right index finger he asked, “So who here wants to bet that Cordelia’s double has got nothing to do with this?”  Everyone looked at him, but didn’t answer.  “Just checking for suckers,” he said with a grin.

*****

The alley where Connor was born

A lone female figure stood in the twilight of sunset, looking intently down a the ground just in front of her.  There was a slight rumble, and then with a mighty boom the asphalt broke open, large pieces of it tossed to either side.  A massive demon burst forth from it; it seemed to be made from rock, as if formed from cooling lava breaking open again, it had hooves for feet, and two rock horns on its head.  It was the quintessential devil; only worse.

“Mistress,” the demon spoke, its voice rumbling like rocks grinding together.

“Yes, my sweet,” the figure spoke, stepping forward and feeling up the beast’s chest. Cordelia’s clone smiled happily, sighing, “You are finally here.”

“Is the plan still on, now that the boy is not-?” the rock demon started to ask.

“*Yess, it’s still on!*” the Cordelia clone hissed angrily.  She fondled in her jacket and produced a small plastic bag holding a hair, “I can’t pass up this opportunity, I’ll never get another chance.  I don’t need the boy’s seed, just his DNA.  *DAMN EVERYTHING TO ALL THE HELLS OF CREATION!*”

The Beast remained unphased, as its mistress started pacing.  “It’s all that- all that- *monkey’s* fault.  Because of him Cordelia became strong enough, and distrustful enough, it’s because of him that bitch is out of jail!  I spent all this time planning this into meticulous detail!  And what happens; one monkey comes along forcing me to improvise!  You have no idea how much energy I wasted crossing the dimensions!  And then to have it all crumbling down, because that /*BITCH*/ can’t keep her libido to one gender, and can’t keep her eyes to herself.  That stupid  SLUT!  That disgusting WHORE!  Just once she couldn’t not look at the seer’s *ASS*!  RAAAH!!”  Done with her ranting, the Cordelia clone stopped her pacing, and stood still breathing heavily, having spent most of her breath in cursing out Xander and Faith.

“Shall I start, then?” the demon asked.

“NO!” the Cordelia clone snapped, while whirling around to face the massive demon. “You can’t face them.”

“Surely-” the beast started somewhat in disbelief.

“They’ve grown stronger,” the fake Cordelia growled out angrily, “Much stronger.  The lower ones you might be able to take, but the Slayer . . . the Slayer . . . a True Slayer, she’s far beyond your league.”

Before the demon could ask then what, the Cordelia clone placed her right hand palm on his chest, and instantly black energy surged audibly from her into the demon; making the air and energy whoosh and crackle past and around them.  The demon cried out, as the energy around him turned orange, and its crevices in the rocky hide started glowing orange.  The insides of its eyes started glowing with the same energy, the crevices in its horns the same way. Around him an orange field of energy came into existence and just as bad was the heat.  A nearby trash can deformed, crumpled inward and the flammable objects inside ignited instantly. The demon groaned out with satisfaction.

Then the fake Cordelia staggered back, and she backed off to the left, and fell back against the wall.  Leaning against it, she groaned.  The demon now glowing from the inner heat of its super heated lava, and the energy of its boosted life force, took a step toward, and asked, “Are you okay, Mistress?”

“I’m fine,” his mistress answered him.  “Just weak, I gave you every little bit of energy that I could spare.  With my energy in you, you are as invisible to their sixth sense as I am.   Now go, and remember, do not engage them should they have figured it out and be in time.   Finish your job, ignore them as much as you can, and especially do not take on the Slayer.   You can go toe to toe with her powered down form now, so toss her aside quickly if you can’t avoid a confrontation, for if she transforms to her ascended state, if she becomes the true Slayer, she’ll still, even now, tear you apart as easily as you crush an insect.”

“Understood, my beautiful mistress, I will not fail you,” the demon rumbled, and then jumped high and away.

The Cordelia Clone moaned, and slowly staggered to her feet.  Then she walked deeper into the alley.  “Reduced to slinking in alleys, hiding in stinking rooms - I’m a goddess!”

*****

Angel then said out loud, drawing attention to himself, “Like I was saying.  The problem with this is, that we don’t know how close these omens are.  Whatever they warn off could happen today, tomorrow, or even months from now.  They might even las-”

“Uh!” Lorne spoke up, interrupting Angel.  Faith definitely looked queasy herself.  “I hate to be the demon that yells ‘Apocalypse nowish’, but . . .”  He held up the map, showing a perfect circle of dots.

“Bloody hell,” Wesley said as they all came closer to look at the map.  Lorne put the map back down.  “What’s . . . wait . . .”  Wesley frowned deeply and got a pen of himself.

“What?” Cordelia asked, looking back and forth between the reinstated Watcher and the map.

Wesley then placed a thick dot about halfway the upper right quarter circle.  “That’s us.” He moved up to the top circle, and made a thick dot there.  “That’s, if I’m not mistaken, the alley where Darla staked herself to give birth to Connor.”

“No way,” Faith muttered, while her friends remained on the couch; only barely though, leaning forward wondering what was going on as they couldn’t see.

“That- that . . .” Angel said weakly, not liking the implications.

Wesley looked for a moment, then drew a line straight across form the Hyperion to the other side of the circle.  Then finished a triangle to the top from there.  Then he drew lines crossed down, forming a pentagram.  He made the dot across from the Hyperion, and then said, “That’s the library where Fred was sent to Pylea.”

“What!?  It is!” Fred exclaimed in shock.

Wesley went down left, frowning.  Angel recognized it quicker, “That was where the Oracles were.”

Wesley looked up, and said, “And were killed by the demon that resurrected Darla, the mother of Connor.”  He pointed at the upper dot.  “But that last one.”

“Holy shit!” Cordelia exclaimed in utter surprise, recognizing the place just about on the water instantly.  She whipped her head around to look at Angel with wide eyes, who had recognized it as well.

“Well?” Faith requested after a moment.

Cordelia turned back to the rest, and said, “That’s where Doyle died, where he sacrificed himself, where he gave me the visions.”

“My god, the mystical convergence!  Why didn’t I realize this before!?” Wesley exclaimed in despair.  Everyone looked at him.

“Well, spit it out, man,” Pike told him impatiently.

“Last year, with the scrolls, we assumed it was just Connor, that it was about Connor, but he was just a small cog in the wheel,” Wesley said and pointed at the pentagram on the map.  “This is it, and this is now.”

“So what’s in the middle that we can go and stop it!?” Fred asked quickly.

“Well, that’s difficult, sweetums, with this ratio, it isn’t exactly easy to determine if the middle is building A, or building B two streets down, or perhaps the street,” Lorne said a little disappointed.

“Hey!” Cordelia exclaimed with big eyes, “That’s pretty close where they put that rich jet set club at the top.  You know, that Greek thing with columns, where all the celebrities go. Rumor has it they even have striptease dancers.”

“A big temple dedicated to decadence and sin?” Pike supplied in a new definition.

“That’s where it’s happening, and it’s happening now,” Wesley confirmed instantly.

“Time to mount up and kick some ass,” Angel exclaimed instantly, and the Angel Team went to action, getting coats and in Lorne’s case weapons.  Faith’s friends stayed put, looking with wide eyes.

“You guys stay put, and watch Connor,” Faith ordered as the Angel Team rapidly filed out the lobby.

“And this was supposed to be a nice quiet afternoon with Faith too,” Zoey pouted extra disappointed.

“Hey, since when are we babysitters?” Tiffany asked indignant.

“Since the world is about to end, kinda fitting, if you ask me,” Archie observed nervously.

“You think they’ll win?” Zoey asked uncertain, looking with wide eyes from Archie to Tiffany and back.  “I mean, they don’t all seem very sure, do they?”

“Ah, please,” Archie said, waving it away.  “Faith is a Super Slayer guys, she could level this city with the ground.  I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

*****

With all the speed they could muster the Angel Team sped to the building, and flew up the sides to save the time from charging the stairs.  Angel was the one who carried Lorne along, making the green man yelp out in surprise.  Soon after they landed on top of the building, which had a nice wide spacious balcony, with some plants lining the side of the edge where they arrived and landed.  Left was the entrance into the club, Greek-style columns, for show, not actually carrying anything, on either side.  To the ride was more Greek-style columns, holding glass sun-roofs, forming two rain shelters.  Some chairs and tables were around - around, as in scattered about instead of making for nice places to sit.  The reason for that was plain as day: a big, rock demon, stood in the middle of an almost circle of dead bodies, and he was holding another dead man by the shins.  Where it was holding the corpse, the flesh sizzled, smoke rising, and it was already blackened with heat.  Lava glowed and bubbled in the crevices between its rock-hide, making him look like the surface of a partially cooled lava flow after a volcanic eruption.  The air around the demon shimmered with the heat, and it seemed to even be reddish or orange in color.  The demon smiled with cool confidence at the arrivals.

“Oookay,” Lorne said with big nervous eyes, “and this is where I step back and leave the battle to those who might be able to scratch big rock over there.”  He promptly added the deed to his word, stepping back and then to the right.

The demon casually dropped the man he was holding, completing the circle and took several steps back going closer to the other edge, smiling all the way - its hooves sound ominously on the stone roof.  “I can’t sense him, can any of you?” Faith asked the others.

Several comments of the same were her answer, and Wesley observed, “Yet somehow, I don’t think this is the real form of our doppelganger.”

“This is a flunky,” Fred agreed.

The demon smiled directly at Faith, and beckoned her over.  “Oh, you’re in for the spanking of a life time, rock boy,” Faith told it and burst forward, powering up mightily and screaming in rage.  At the last moment, a red chi flame burst up around the demon, throwing Faith off guard.  The demon caught her fist, and with motion quicker than its bulk gave it credit for, yanked Faith onward and tossed her off the roof.  It jumped after her, and slammed its hooves powerfully into Faith’s back, sending her hurtling down while screaming in pain.

The demon then quickly flipped back on the roof and grinning it charged the still stunned Fang Gang.  A moment later its fist slammed into Angel’s gut, and it tossed him off to the left.   As the vampire slammed through the glass sun roof, the team went into action.  Pike jumped up and away from the demon preparing an energy ball, while Wesley did the same into the other direction while Cordelia stayed put.  Fred however, boldly charged the demon and slammed her fist across its jaw, with Lorne watching the lithe, petite form of the scientific genius with wide eyes.  “Fred!” Pike warned, as Angel struggled back.  Fred yanked her hand back, surprised at the heat scorching her skin.  The demon’s head had snapped to its right, but then grinned at the young demon huntress.  With a sudden punch to Fred’s stomach he doubled her over, making her groan in pain.  Then the demon slammed her face in its hot, and rock-hard knee, which it brought up with speed.

“Aargh!” Fred exclaimed with pain as she snapped back up, blood splattering from her face.  With a vicious right backhand to the side of her head the demon sent Fred flying off to her left, to slam painfully against the stone Greek column.  The demon sent two orange eye beams after her, which sliced into her right shoulder making Fred scream even more with pain as first her flesh melted and then fried shut.  A small explosion later sent Fred tumbling to the right, and laid still.

“FRED!” four voices screamed in horror and anger.  “You bastard!” Cordelia added and grabbed the demon with her telekinesis and held it off the floor.  A barrage of energy balls from both her, Pike, and Wesley assaulted the demon; who just grinned, not saying a word.  It only jerked with every direct hit and explosion.  Cordelia wanted to hurt the thing more, and not just because it needed to be stopped, attempting to invade the thing’s mind.  Attempting, because at first glimpse all she got was lava, and putrid, sulfuric, fiery death.  It made her jerk in shock.  The demon chose that moment to fully capitalize, and made its first sound.  With a roar its red chi burst forth, assaulting the three warriors, who backed up from both the energy and the heat that came with it.  Then tendrils of orange lava-like energy slashed outward and tied the hands and legs of the three Angel Team members together.  They started sizzling with heat immediately giving the three of them great pain.  It slammed its massive right hand into Cordelia’s face, shooting her backward till she crashed into the building’s edge painfully.  Her painful scream ended and she slumped into unconsciousness.  The demon had wasted no time, and already sailed right and upward, his left fist slamming across Wesley’s cheek.  Blood splattered forth as Wesley started flying to his left with an aching groan.  The demon then twisted around, and smashed a forward roundhouse kick into Wesley’s face, blistering his face with the heat as well as sending more blood flying and bruising his face.  That, and sending Wesley hurtling away.

Continuing the spinning motion into the other direction, the demon slammed its foot with all its might into Pike’s gut, who just managed to struggle free from the lava tendrils.  The barely-recovered Hunter slammed into the ground, making a sizable dent, and rolled onward till he slammed into the building’s edge.

With a roar, and his game face on, Angel was back up and his chi flame was burning brightly, flickering with the maximum stress Angel put into it.  Tiny tendrils of deep purple electricity flickered now and then, and the inner arc of the flame was dark, almost black, both a testament to his internal demon.  “We are nowhere near finished, bus boy!” Angel growled at the demon, and charged forward, firing energy ball after energy ball.  The demon actually took a step back under the barrage, and then Angel reached it, slamming rapid punch after punch, after kick into it.  With ever punch the beast jerked or took a step back.  Watching Angel put the hurt on the demon, Lorne silently cheered him on.  Then Angel’s offense was put to a stop as the demon first grabbed Angel’s right wrist, and then his left wrist.  It grinned at Angel for but a moment, before slamming its head forward and ramming it against Angel’s face.  With a yell of pain Angel jerked back, but was held in place by his hands.  Then the demon let go and with a mighty move, slammed both its fists into Angel’s stomach, making him shoot backward, through the building’s edge, and then down.

On a time table, the demon wasted no more time.  It jumped over to the circle, and slammed its fist into the middle.  Instantly a column of fire rose up, consuming the dead bodies, and then shot several hundred meters up in the air.  There it instantly formed a small vortex, black clouds of fiery smoke formed at its edges, and then from the vortex and the clouds, drops of fire started falling.  Soon a gentle rain of fire came falling down to the earth; setting things flammable ablaze, but otherwise snuffing out quite soon.  Again the beast wasted no time, jumping away from where he had sent Faith, the same direction as the Angel Team had come from, and then flew off, burst sharply down and away.

“RAAH!” Faith roared as she burst upward above the building roof, her fists raised upward at shoulder height, and a deep and powerful blue chi burst around her, her irises pitch black, and her hair whirling about as electricity crackled in it.  “Where is it!?” she roared, seeing it gone.  She burst forward with anger, and looked around; the demon had already hid, and her chi sense told her nothing either.  “DAMN IT!” she screamed and then noticed the deeply hurt Fred.  She quickly went over, and gently, checked the girl’s wounds.

Fred’s eyes flickered open, and then widened, despite the pain in her body.  Faith looked where Fred was looking and fully noticed the fire rain falling down from the vortex.  Lorne, and a returned painful Wesley also looked with defeat at the spectacle.  Pike struggled to his hands and knees and then froze in defeat, looking at the event.  A moment later Angel came back to the roof, surviving its damage, and then looked with a heavy heart at the rain of fire. Faith was not yet ready to give in to the defeat and despair, and then burst up into the air rapidly.  Closer to the vortex she charged the Galic Gun, and fired it up into the Vortex . . . which promptly grew bigger.  She stopped it, and as the fire rain intensified somewhat, she lowered herself back down to the roof with wide eyes - defeated.

*****

Chris Rivers, boyfriend to Super Slayer Buffy Summers sat in his apartment, three quarters up into the tall building.  He was thinking, and he was doing it deeply.  A book was lying idly on the table in front of him, the words having long since blurred together, and he had given up on reading it.  On his mind was just one thing; his girlfriend.  Normally that would be a good thing, but not this time.  Normally he’d be thinking of how sexy she was, how good she felt against him, the warmth of her lips as she kissed him.

Not this time.

No, this time it hurt to think of her.  She wasn’t so sexy anymore.  She didn’t feel so good against him anymore.  Buffy Summers was wasting away in front of him.  It hurt him deeply in a way he could barely fathom.  His heart ached; how could such a beautiful and bright girl just about disappear in front of him.  Her brightness, her shining light that had shone on him from the moment she had caught him falling to his death - and how his suicide attempt shamed him now - was dimming.  She still smiled, and seemed happy, but he knew different.   They just didn’t quite reach her eyes anymore; as if she was lying to herself, or didn’t have the energy, the food, in her to let it reach her eyes . . . or both.

As if that wasn’t enough, he had no idea how to handle this.  He had tried to talk to her about it, but she had dismissed his concerns . . . actually, she barely seemed to acknowledge his concerns.  When she came over; he had chocolates and other sweets ready.  That hadn’t helped in getting her to eat either.  But she barely took them, no, that wasn’t being fair; she didn’t take them at all.  The only one she ate, had been the one he had half forced her to eat by treating her like a three-year-old and choochood it into her mouth, and then kept her from spitting it out by kissing her.

He sighed and got up, then started walking back and forth.  He couldn’t bare to see her waste away.  He couldn’t bare to see that beautiful light dim.  He came across his couch, and with a burst of irrational anger he kicked it.  “OW!” he exclaimed and grabbed his hurting toes, cursing all of existence at his bad luck.  Standing there bent over, and gritting his teeth, rubbing the feeling other than hurt back into his socks-only-clad toes, he started thinking about what could have prompted Buffy to stop eating.  For a moment he thought that it might be him - perhaps she wanted to show him her support by dieting herself.  He dismissed it, his trips to the gym and slightly restructured eating habits had slimmed him down some; but he wasn’t thin, and he certainly wasn’t starving himself like Buffy was.

When had it started?  He stood up, hurting toe forgotten.  Than damn legend!  Right after they returned from their trip into the past.  Then it had started, hadn’t it?  Was it really all about having been degenerated to a lazy, fat pig in a dumb piece of fiction?  Did she want to show everyone that she wasn’t fat?  That she wasn’t that humanoid pig?  Well, she succeeded there; nobody in their right mind would equate the almost skeleton with a fat pig now.  That really had to be it!  Okay, so, cause discerned, however stupid the cause was, but how to get her to eat again.

After a few moments of thought, several scenarios presented themselves, but he dismissed them all.  Groaning in frustration he started pacing again.  Some of his ideas were ridiculous; like he could tie her down and force her to eat, she’d be free in no time if he could somehow wrap her in the golden gate bridge.  Others were rather manipulative, and that made him feel bad.  With his frustration mounting quickly to become anger, there was a flash and an eery sound.  He blinked and walked over to the window, looking out it.  A rain of fire started to fal across LA.  Chris blinked and looked at the event, fearfully.  Unlike defeat though, a sudden certainty entered him, and he smiled a little despite the fear that coursed through him underneath his certainty.  So it might be a little manipulative. *You like guys with confidence, right, Buffy?  Certainty, well, here I am,* Chris thought, settling on a plan of action. *Besides, until the other Slayers and her friends solve this, best to be far away from this damned city.*   Then he turned around, and started packing.

*****

Jimmy Berluti, Lindsay Dole, and Bobby Donnell stood stock still in shock.  They had come to LA to try a case, one they had won, and had gone to celebrate.  They looked with wide eyes at the falling fire, and the vortex high in the sky.

“Didn’t we tell you, Jimmy?  We told you, but you wouldn’t believe us,” Bobby muttered as dread steadily came to master him.  Jimmy just nodded in disbelieve.

Lindsay swallowed, and managed to mutter, “I /really/ wish we hadn’t though.”

“More like; that it really was all just a joke,” Bobby said weakly, feeling like his stomach was about to fall out his body downstairs.

“Let’s get to our hotel, quickly,” Jimmy said, and his friends and co-workers nodded in agreement.  Then they quickly turned and half ran off, like many other people around them.

*****

Tiffany, Zoey, and Archie were glued to the Hyperion second floor windows.  Connor was nearby, sleeping peacefully in his crib.  The rain of fire gently came down, and the three watched with shock.

“I can’t believe they didn’t win,” Zoey whimpered.

“Well, I see no demons stampeding down the streets,” Archie tried to offer a positive spin on things.

“Yet,” Tiffany added, and then they just watched silently.

*****

The Cordelia-clone was lying on a bed in the apartment she had gotten; an abandoned, and condemned place.  The bed was a makeshift one, some blankets for her to lie on.  She was masturbating, moaning and rubbing her vagina.  Close to her orgasm she brought her other hand over; the one in which she was holding Connor’s hair.  She pushed her fingers holding the hair inside of her, and she climaxed.  Shuddering with pleasure she extended a little of her energy in the hair, and a moment later a pink light formed in her womb, bright enough to pierce her skin and be visible on the outside.  It coiled around her, melting with her eggs, and the circling tendrils than contracted into a small crooked form; a small fetus.  Then the light dimmed, and the self-proclaimed goddess started laughing heartily.  Then she laughed harder, and in the laughter an eery wrongness entered.

To Be Continued . . .

In two episodes, the Fang Gang will have their jobs cut out for them, but first we return to Sunnydale, where Chris arrives to take on a mission, and Willow has to come to terms with Tara leaving her, in Buffy Z - Episode 88: Unprofessional Therapy.