Sunnydale, Februar 2003
Half of the villa was rubble, the rest ruined. The garage had fared a bit better, but looked like it would be condemned by any building inspector anyway. It had saved the life of Faith, who had climbed - or maybe jumped, Rick wasn't sure such a feat was beyond either of the two oldest Slayers - on its roof. "Why don't I feel as if we've won a victory?" He sighed.
"Because you didn't grow up on a Hellmouth." Xander answered.
"It was a rhetorical question." He frowned at the younger man
"Thats what people say when they don't like the answers to their questions." Xander grinned, then grew serious. "The butcher's bill is not as bad as I feared at first. We lost Molly, Chloé, Amanda and Annabelle. Mary and Anya are wounded, but seem stable."
"No wounded among the Slayers?" Rick asked.
"Nothing that won't be healed in a day or so. "Shannon is the worst off."
Rick noded. Most of the dead but Annabelle he hadn't really known, and Annabelle he only remembered well because she had been a bit of a fan, and had talked a few times with him.
"We'll have to leave though. The house can't be held against another attack, and we need to get the wounded to a hospital." Xander continued.
"Outside Sunnydale." Rick assumed.
"Yes." Xander kicked a pebble away, then looked at the crater in the middle of the road. "We can get the cars over that, with a bit of Slayer elbow grease, planks and Willow's magic. Then one group goes to the hospital, the rest goes and get the scythe from whatever monster is guarding it."
"Sounds like a good plan." Rick didn't know why Xander was running it past him - he was the outsider here.
"You look a bit banged up as well." Ah, that was the reason.
He didn't quite look at Xander. "I am fine. My shoulder was fixed, it hurts a bit still, but it won't slow me down." Much.
"Someone has to protect them, in case some bringers track them down." Xander wasn't giving up.
"Shannon can do that better than I can. And she can get her wounds looked at there too. It's not as if I have missed the Slayers' tendencies to claim they are fine despite evidence to the contrary." Rick countered. "Besides, I'd rather not go with my ex-wife. She's really cranky when she's wounded."
"Worse than PMS?"
"Yes."
Xander winced, then left. Rick heard him call for Buffy and Dawn. By any rights, Rick should be helping out, doing something. But that had been the biggest, most dangerous battle he had ever seen, or taken part in. He probably was shell-shocked. Or something like it. He'd have to use such a scene in his next book too. Without the bombs though.
If he survived, of course. At least Mary would be safe, relatively. Alexis wouldn't be an orphan. Although she might wish she was, if Martha couldn't keep Mary in check.
*****
Two hours later, Rick was reconsidering his decision to stay. He was hiding behind in a bush behind a ditch, facing an old mansion. Sturdy walls, lots of spots to hide and ambush people. "Is it just me, or does this scene look familiar? We're missing our own army of expendable demon suicide bombers though."
Buffy, Faith and Xander laughed. None of the minis did. Rupert muttered something. Rick shook his head. "Seriously, what are the odds it'll be as trapped as our house was, or more?"
"If it's a trap, it'll be one for our enemy." Buffy stated, cradling her M60. Rick had to admit that she was getting a bit too attached to that. But he wouldn't be as stupid as to mention it. Only a fool would try to get between a Slayer and her weapon, so that was clearly up to Xander.
"We don't need to get inside. We just need to get the scythe, which is somewhere below the mansion." Willow explained. Again. The Slayers were quite a bloodthirsty bunch though, and wanted to storm the mansion and massacre everything inside with their bare hands.
"It's an axe, not a scythe." Buffy stated, not for the first time. "I know an axe when I see it, even in a dream."
"It's referred to as a scythe in the old texts. Its actual name is 'mʔ'," Rupert corrected his Slayer.
"We don't have to storm the place at all. We keep it bottled up and go underground to get the scythe, even if we have to dig it out." Xander cut in.
"Axe."
"Mʔ."
Rick rubbed his temple. Compared to the headache listening to the bickering was causing, the pain from his bruises and shoulder was nothing. His family would never believe him that he was the most responsible man left in Sunnydale. "We don't even know if there is anyone in there. Isn't the scythe protected from evil or so?" He ignored Buffy's "Axe!" as everyone else did.
"Well, theoretically, but the presence of the Hellmouth might have weakened those enough for demons to reside nearby." Rupert polished his glasses.
"We could wait until it's dark, and then send in Spike as a scout." Xander proposed.
"Oh, really, Xander? I'll go take a look myself!" Buffy rolled her eyes at her friend, then went up and started towards the mansion in a crouch.
Xander cursed, then turned to the rest. "Stay here, I'll cover her." Both soon reached the building, and disappeared inside.
Rick and the others waited for ten tense minutes, until Buffy appeared again, waving. "It's empty!" she yelled.
"That could be the First," Willow looked at the blonde with narrowed eyes. "I don't see Xander."
"What do we do now?"
"I don't know. We can't just shoot her, if it's Buffy, she'll be hurt."
It turned out that waiting until Buffy got annoyed enough to come down to the waiting group was enough to solve the problem. Getting touched by everyone didn't improve her mood though. Xander, joining her, was pretty much tackled by a few minis, but he seemed to enjoy that. At least he joked as if he did.
But with the threat of a trap removed, the scythe/axe/mʔ-recovery mission could continue, more or less smoothly. Faith and a bunch of minis set up a perimeter, as Xander called it, around the mansion, the rest went down into the sewers and other tunnels beneath the mansion. Somewhere down there, in a veritable maze, was the relic they sought.
Rick would be going down with them, since he was not quite as good a shot with a rifle as any Slayer, mini or not, and couldn't fire a minimi as if it was a machine pistol either. It wasn't a very comforting reason for his male ego, but at least Mary'd be jealous when he'd tell her of the mission.
*****
"Relax, Buffy - I know those tunnels like the back of my hand. Used them to get around during daylight all the time, back before I got chipped." Spike sounded as confident as before the first dead end he had led them to.
"Couldn't they have fixed you at the same time?" Xander snarled.
"Watch it, soldier boy!" The vampire turned and bared his teeth at the young man.
"If you two don't shut up and get on with the recovering, I'll fix both of you! With a spoon!" Buffy growled at them until they relented, and focused on the mission again. Rick personally doubted anyone had still an idea where they were, but the group was already tense enough, he'd rather not make it worse.
"It's in this direction!" Willow pointed at a wall, a glowing crystal in her other hand.
Buffy went ahead and knocked on the wall. "It sounds a bit more hollow than the last one." She beamed at Spike, who groaned while he stepped up, pickaxe in hand.
"Why it's always the vampire who has to do the menial labor? I am not the only supernaturally strong being here, you know!" he complained.
"You're the only male supernaturally strong being though," Buffy explained. "Therefore, it's your duty to do the menial work. Besides, dust would ruin my pants."
Faced with everyone nodding in agreement, Spike grumbled, and started to tear the wall down. It took him a while, but finally, a room was revealed. As soon as he caught a glimpse, Rick gasped: "Shut the front door! They actually did the sword in the stone routine? What's this, Excalibur 2.0?" Rick stared at the weapon half-buried in a block of stone. "If I would use that gimmick in a novel, my critics would crucify me!"
"It's not a sword, it's an axe!" Buffy huffed at him, then stepped forward.
"The mʔ actually predates the Arthurian legends by a few millennia at least." Rupert had to stress the name, of course.
Buffy huffed again, then grabbed the heft of the thing, and pulled. The weapon came free as if it was just resting on the stone block, and she lifted it above her head with an enraptured smile. Glancing around, Rick noticed that all the minis with them shared the expression. He had thought they liked weapons before, but this was a whole new level of worship...
Buffy closed her eyes, shivering, then took a deep breath before looking at the group. "The First won't know what hit it when I strike the bitch down with this!"
Rick wished he had worn ear protection after the minis stopped shouting their agreement. The noise level in the small cave was deafening.
*****
About an hour and three disagreements about the right path later, the group had found their way back to the surface.
"Hi guys! We're back with the axe!" Buffy yelled, presenting it to the rest of the Slayers. Again they seemed enraptured, but once they recovered, they stared at Rick with a very odd, and quite scary expression. Especially Faith, who marched straight towards him.
"Don't move!" she growled
Rick froze. "Yes, ma'am! Ow!"
The rogue Slayer - or former rogue Slayer - grabbed his arm, squeezing. "You're not the First."
"No, I am not. Could you let go now? It's a tad painful." Rick winced.
"You're not dead either."
"I think I'd have noticed that. What is going on?"
Faith dragged more than led him to a body covered with a blanket. That was when Rick noticed the signs of a firefight all around him - and a few dozen dead Bringers. He forgot about the demons though when Faith kicked the blanket away and he was staring at a face that looked like his. Well, apart from the bullet holes in it. And he wasn't missing the back of his head either. And he certainly would never be caught dead with such a horrible hairstyle. And the nose was not right, or so he thought. Jaw's a bit too strong, maybe.
Still… "First the sword in the stone, now the evil twin… isn't there any cliché the First won't be using?"
"It's the First Evil, what did you expect? Respect of intellectual property?" Xander, like everyone else, was staring at the dead man, who had apparently been the leader of the bringers, as well as supernaturally tough, according to Faith. Not tough enough to survive in the crossfire of half a dozen machine guns though.
"I'd have expected a bit more class, at least!" Rick shook his head. "I can't use that in my novels either!"
And everyone was looking at him with a weird expression again.