In the Hyperion the battle began, with that first heavily telegraphed move by Glory. As soon as Spike had looked at him, Angel had, if at all possible, intensified the level at which he watched Spike's face like a hawk. That so beautiful, so well known face that wore such a shocked expression at Cordeilia's description of Angel's own feelings. He saw the immediate change in expression a split second before he heard the first crack as the glass doors directly behind him began to shatter. Giving silent thanks for his childe's no doubt unconscious forewarning, and his own inherent preternatural speed, Angel all but flew to safety before the glass began to fly, let alone finished settling. In his travels he physically picked Spike up and ran with him. Thankfully, Spike didn't put up much of a fight at his sire's protective action.
"I want the key! And I want it now!" A high pitched female voice demanded from somewhere behind him, in the general direction of what remained of the hotel's main door.
"And that is Glory, I presume?" He asked Spike as he put his childe back on his own feet before he turned to face this new threat to his William's life. That glass could have hurt the baby, and have hurt his Spike too. Killing his family in one easy stroke. That he couldn't forgive. No one was ever going to hurt either Spike or their child ever again. Not him, not Buffy, and especially not this jumped up stupid little fart of a Goddess. No one!
Spike was no fool. He knew that Angel's action had possibly saved both the baby and him. So he bit his tongue on the almost instinctive sarcastic retort and answered honestly, with the truth as he knew it.
"Not only that, but she has to possess a human male as a host, so what you see is not only Glory but it's also Xander Harris." He cast a shy look at Angel's face as his sire processed that bit of information. After hours of angst and worry, Angel's face suddenly dissolved in unbridled laughter.
"Oh, sweet Mary mother of God. Xander Harris in a bright red tart's dress?" Angel couldn't hold it in any longer. He let fly with a loud bellow of laughter. "And what key do you want? A nice room key so you can fuck your little gremlins? Or your..." He sniffed the air and turned to look at Spike, indicating the group of things following Glory into the foyer.
"Mortals, I think, but they do smell off, somehow." Spike looked past Angel to the only other vampire in the foyer. "Harm?" He got her attention and indicated he wanted her there with him and his sire. Spike's scent came with her.
It worried Angel, that the sire scent came from this blonde threat. He knew Spike had never created childer, but Harmony reeked of Spike's dominant scent. As if he was her sire. He watched her advance with more than a touch of fear and annoyance. She was so comfortable in Spike's presence, it unnerved him to think that Spike might choose her company over his. Once she got there, a second later, Spike pointed to the almost mortals with Glory.
"They smell 'off' to us, not quite mortal, not quite anything else. You got any input into this?" He easily met Hamrmony's eyes as he talked to her. Something he hadn't done much to Angel since he had entered the hotel a scant hour or two before.
The blonde vampiress shook her head. She was much less experienced in such matters as even one of the Slayer's friends, that much she could at least acknowledge to herself. She did wonder, for the briefest flickering moment, why Spike would choose to ask for her advice rather than Buffy and her friends. Then she understood, she realised such a basic truth it both chilled her and warmed her. It was all due to betrayal. Unlike any one of them she hadn't turned against Spike. Not to that extreme at any rate.
Buffy had heard every word that Spike had said. No matter what had gone down since he had returned to her, she always knew exactly where he was in any room they shared. She couldn't let him get hurt ever again. And just because Angel was here was no reason to stop. If anything it was more than reason enough, in her eyes, to protect Spike all the more. He had to realise that every second he was with Angel was one more second closer to Angelus' evil jealousy. To another assault, another attack. To being raped one more time. Unable to stand by and let Angel have unchallenged access to Spike she butted into the vampire's conversation. Anyway, she justified things to herself, she had the information they seemed to need.
"She wiggled her fingers in their brains. They're mortal enough, just no longer really all that sentient." She dragged Dawn over to Spike as she made to join him and the other two vampires.
"She what?" Spike demanded a repeat of Buffy's statement. He rather hoped the mental image he had was a false one.
"When she's looking for information she sticks her hand inside folks heads and wiggles her fingers. It's what she did to Tara, what Hera managed to cure, but I think she feeds off of those particular ones." Buffy looked at the shuffling mounds that had once been living, breathing, feeling, thinking people. Now they merely breathed and existed.
Spike was a little disappointed to realise that his imaginings were every bit as bad as the reality they all faced. It also worried him, what could she do to Alicia if she touched her? And that fear made him immediately defensive.
"Eww!" Harmony made an outraged face at the other realm Goddess. "That is so not good! Eat them, fine, if you really must, they can always fight and run away. But messing with their life force like that? That's just plain evil!" She was game faced, ready for the up coming fight. Totally ignorant of two vampires and a slayer smiling behind her back. "Ok, I know what to do here." She turned back all cheerfully intent on putting forward her plan. "Spike stays back here and guards Dawny. Angel and I will take out the walking smorgasbord and Buffy and Hera can go for Glory.. leaving the gremlin things for everyone else." She smiled at the attentive faces, enjoying the look of unity in her group. "Okay?" She challenged.
"Damn right, Harm! Spike stays out of things with Dawn. I can get with that program. Angel?" Buffy looked directly at her former lover, the man she used to call friend for his no doubt caustic response.
For his part Angel admitted to himself that he didn't like this Harmony. She was too close to Spike, but she was also, sadly, quite right.
"I agree, Spike stays out of the fight, he stays back here with Dawn."
Spike had his own opinion on the subject and didn't like his actions being decided by a committee, of whom he only currently liked one member.
"Just a bleedin' minute here, no one decides what I'm goin' to do but me. And Hera. But in this fight it's every hand on deck and we all fight. I am not entirely incapable of fighting, you know?" He glared at his companions and realised he hadn't changed one opinion.
"Please Spike. If not for me, or yourself, then for Alicia?" Dawn asked her friend to stay safe.
"That's all it is, formerly Blondie Bear! I don't want anything bad happening to the baby. Or you for that matter." Harmony kissed Spike on the cheek, only to be dragged away by Buffy. Angel had been too stunned to forcefully remove the vampiress from touching distance of Spike. But he supported Buffy's action. This time.
"This is neither the time nor the place to be making any kind of play for Spike. Leave him alone!" He underscored his command with a subsonic growl. Only Dawn didn't hear it, although with the instant response it got she could figure out what he must have done for herself.
"Who do you think you're growling at?" Harmony almost challenged him.
"Glory? The fight? And Spike is staying here to protect me." Dawn pushed Harmony, and Buffy, slightly towards the now furious Goddess who was facing off against Hera, and their friends.
"Glory!" Buffy readjusted her immediate priorities and turned to face Glory.
"Mangled people!" Harmony re-acquired her target lock, the look on her face an entirely predatory one. "Come on growly, before they get over here and get Spike." She urged Angel forwards and headed for the mind wiped force at Glory's side, with ot without him she was going to engage the enemy.
Angel paused to look at his childe. To make one last entreaty to him, not holding out much hope of a reasonable response.
"Please Spike. Keep yourself, the baby and Dawn safe. I couldn't take loosing you again." Without waiting for a response he turned and joined Harmony in the battle with the mindless minions. He silently and secretly hoped that the violence of a fight might bleed off some of his darker passions. Like his deep seated urge to grab Spike and run!
"Never mind once was blondie.." Dawn teased her best friend, ever. "What they all failed to take any note of is that Glory is gonna be heading here. For me! I'm her damn Key after all. So, you'll not be all that out of the fight. Just held in reserve, sort of." She grinned at her friends look of utter surrise. It seemed to her that Spike hadn't thought of that either.
Spike finally laughed at his young friend's cunning.
Glory was facing up to Hera, the elder, native to their world, Goddess was drawing on the freely given and direct belief of her immediate followers. Their power was being fed through her Priestess and into the heart of the battle. Glory was fighting on her reserves of power. All she had gathered from the fragile life forces of her once human cannon fodder.
Some of the little wizened faced gremlin look-a-likes rushed towards the two vampires fighting side by side. One of them held an ornate cross in his hands and waved it rather annoyingly in Harmony's face. Angel caught the motion and turned to see the blonde vampiress facing down against the cross bearer. What he didn't expect was for Harmony to grab the cross and with a single blow, smash the ugly little being's skull in with it.
And no sizzling.
"Get real, gremlins!" Harmony's voice dripped sarcasm as she clubbed one of the ex-humans with the cross. "What you got is a fancy piece of metal. That is all! What I got is true belief! Sheesh!" With that she pinned one of the gremlin like minions to the nearest wall with the cross. "See, I believe in my Goddess, she believes in my belief and protects me. What does yours do? Wears totally skanky dresses and couldn't walk in heals if her sad pathetic little life depended on it! And all you do is die!" With that she puched another ex-human and snapped his neck with the power of her strike.
Angel laughed. It was a near hysterical sound from the very pit of his soul. But Harmony had taken no damage from that cross. She professed her belief and still bitched about the bitch Goddess' truly awful dress sense. Yet, she had taken no damage from that cross what so ever.
In their corner of the fight Cordeilia's voice could be heard screaming abuse at the wave of gremlins that ran at them as she faced the fight side by side with Kate and Anya. Cordeilia's rage turned in to shock and fear as Kate fell to the foyer floor with a short sword passing from the front through to her back. She lay there, bleeding over the floor, twitching, making a few whimpered grunts. Looking like some sick idea of a human kebab. Cordeilia felled the assailent that had struck Kate. Screaming at it all the while. Not really thinking about what she said, so long as it was heard and understood.
"I am so going to do that to that skanky bitcg gosddess Glory! Xander or no Xander!" Cordeilia stepped over the gremlins that fell under her favourite small hand axe.
Anya looked at the dark haired woman swiping at her enemies, cutting a swath towards their greater enemy. She looked at that deranged enemy and saw not the blonde Goddess wanting their doom. But the dark haired mortal man that had offered her nothing but his unconditional love. She knew that what Cordeilia said was true. They were all trying their utmost to do that very thing to her Xander. To kill him. Anya knew it had to happen. But in her heart she knew that she couldn't stay there and watch it happen. Not to her Xander, to the man she loved with all her heart.
Pushing her way forwards, almost blindly, Anya fled through the remains of the broken door and into the night. They could fight Glory and kill her Xander, but she'd be damned if she'd stand by and applaud while they did so. That was asking just too much.
Behind her, Cordeilia engaged her next foe, unaware of Anya's flight. Only focusing on the fight to survive.
A sudden change of tack had several of the former human minions heading over towards Spike and Dawn. Trying to drive a wedge between the fighters and the defender and Glory's Key.
"Bag!" Spike's voice called out behind Angel, he risked a brief second to glance over his shoulder, in time to see Dawn reach for one of the long bags Oz had brought in with them. Turning back as he recognised the click-clack of a shotgun being readied for action. Followed by a shower of ceiling plaster as Spike fired his first shot into the ceiling, halting their progress for a much needed second.
Before the last echoes of the shotgun blast had fully died away, Faith had finally engaged the enemy and her first fight as a true Slayer for so very long was on! She had so much pent-up rage and fury to vent. All the guilt of having failed in her sacred duty was now fully focused on that fight. All her guilt over the torture she forced Wesley to suffer was purged in that fight. She would not let her sacred charges down again. It no longer fully mattered to her if her enemy was human or demon, all that mattered was that she was defending those in the right. Innocence was innocence, there was no greater cause to fight for, than to protect the innocent. No matter what the species.
"Here!" Dawn handed Spike a short sword and he began to cut a path through the ranks of the almost dead. Backing up his legal charge. He hadn't achieved freedom for Faith just to see her fall in the first battle that came along.
A roar off to the far right brought a lupine form fully into the fray by Spike's other side. The enemy retreated, slightly. Allowing Angel to get back towards Spike and acquire the shotgun from Dawn's hands.
"Can I use that?" He smiled at her and she handed him Spike's first weapon. Turning back to the battle he pushed ahead of his comrades and fired several shots into the mini army of zombied humans. He didn't want to kill them, but neither could he take the risk of their hurting Spike and their baby. Or, in deed, hurting Dawn either. Yet as he cleared many of them from the fight, more seemed to pour in the hole that had been his door.
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