FIC: Hellmouth Heroes (49/?)

Amanda awoke, eyes shooting open as she glanced blearily around, her stomach hollowing as she remembered where she was and why. She reached for the light then started at the shadow moving. "Who's there!" she gasped.

"You think you're special, you have potential." Amanda moaned at the familiar voice, then moaned again when the spectre of her mother moved into view. "But you're nothing, nothing special at all. And your potential got us killed!"

"No," she whimpered, unable to tear her eyes away from her mother's twisted face. Her mother was normally so kind, so loving. "Not my fault, it was the First-."

"The First?" Amanda's mother shook her head. "If you were really special, you'd have protected us. But now we're dead, but at least it's over. For us. Your end is going to be far, far worse than ours."

"No, no," Amanda shook her head. "It's not true."

"I'd hug you Mandy," her mom cooed. "But I can't, because I'm not really here, and thanks to you, I'll never be here again."

"MOM!" Amanda's heart cracked again as her mother disappeared, tears leaking down her face.

"Hello Roger."

Roger paused in raising his tea to his mouth before forcing an unconcerned expression and turning towards the apparition of Quentin Travers. "Hello Quentin or should I say the First?"

"I could never fool you," Quentin flashed a half-smile. "It's good to see you again."

"Oh really?" Roger sniffed. "I rather thought we were on opposite sides of this war now."

"But of course, but one can take pleasure from seeing an old friend just before the end," Travers sighed. "It will end of course, and very badly for you."

Roger stared steadily at his class-mate. "That remains to be seen."

"Does it, does it really?" Travers let out his familiar barking laugh. "You can't seriously expect this army of miscreants to defeat me?"

"Things look bleak," Roger conceded with a nod. "But then things are always darkest before the dawn."

"Cliches, Roger?" Travers shook his head. "I expected better. Perhaps this undisciplined Slayer is rubbing off on you? If this group was led by someone with your experience and skills you might have a ghost of a chance, but this street brat is your hope? A child utterly lacking in learning and breeding?"

"Yes," Roger nodded as a stunning revelation hit him. He rose, taking a breath as he turned to face the First, a smile tugging at his lips as he realised just what the First wanted from him, what in fact he had unwittingly been giving the First since his arrival. "Faith is many things – wilful, impetuous, out-spoken, and crude. However there's one thing she certainly isn't and that's a coward." He paused. "I only wish the same could be said about you."

'Travers'' face mottled in outrage. "How dare you?"

"How dare I?" Roger threw his head back and laughed uproariously. Good grief, it felt good to laugh. "I remember the old gang, do you?"

Travers glared at him. "I remember."

"Yes, you, me, Rutherford Sirk, Bernard Crowley, and Archibald Lassiter, we were the rising stars in the late fifties," he shook his head, the decades-old memories flooding over him. "All of us apart from you took on Slayers, I saw my girl die." And he realised a part of him had died that day too, the part that had enabled him to emote, to feel. "All of us fought. But not you, you craven, you sat behind a desk, plotting and manipulating, gathering power like a miser hoards gold." Roger looked the First in the eye. "I should have stopped listening to you long ago. But better late than never, now get out of my sight."

Roger stared thoughtfully around the suddenly empty kitchen. "Bridges to mend I suppose."

"Ah," Giles smiled as a very familiar figure entered his bookshop. "Have you come in to buy a textbook for your studies?"

Faith grinned at his teasing. "Yeah, 'cause I'm just that studious." The brunette bombshell sobered as she stopped by the counter, placed her arms on the wooden surface and leaned on them, looking towards him with worried eyes. "I came to see ya 'bout Mandy?"

Giles smiled even as his heart tightened at the thought of the poor, lost girl at his home. "Your concern does you credit."

A slight flush rose in the brunette's high cheeks as she shrugged. "She's a potential, I'm the-," Faith grimaced, "scratch that, a Slayer, she's kinda my responsibility."

Giles' smile briefly widened at the young woman's reply. No one would guess it at first glance, but Faith was in fact a very compassionate young woman. "As you might expect Amanda is a mess after losing her family."

"Losing mine was a celebration, I have the date marked in the calendar, annual party-time."

Giles raised an eyebrow at the Slayer's caustic comment. "I'd advise not mentioning that to Amanda."

Faith chuckled. "Who do you think I am, Cor?" The beauty's dark eyes hardened. "Seriously how is she?"

Giles sighed. "She's a mess, very withdrawn. Practically catatonic in-," his eyes bulged as the door crashed open. "Good lord!"

Kate wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans even as she sneaked a look at Stein working at his desk. After the recent revelations she'd wanted to speak to the senior detective but hadn't been able to gather her nerve. "Now's the time," she muttered as she rose.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

She gasped at the sound of gunfire on the station stairwell. She locked eyes with Stein as they simultaneously lunged for their guns.

"We've been eating here forever Michael," Devon supped at his coffee. "You wanna ask Anne out just ask her out."

"Yeah, but," Michael glanced around the busy café, grateful that the subject they were talking about appeared to be in the kitchen, "I'm not you. I'm not slick with girls."

"Really?" Devon grinned. "I hadn't noticed."

Despite himself Michael found himself grinning back. They were unlikely best friends, but the years spent fighting together had made them just that. "Yeah, but she's one of us now, things might be difficult-."

Devon laughed. "Don't even try that. Xan's doin' okay with Faith, Gunn's got Cordy, Freddy's dating Alonna, Mr. Giles has Ms. Calender-."

"Yeah, I get your-," Michael's jaw dropped even as he leapt to his feet. "We've got trouble!"

Mayor Finch found his attention wandering despite the importance of his business meeting. All he'd found out over the last few days had shaken him to his core. He'd known for years about vampires and demons, but the idea of a First Evil was spine-chilling. "The factory will provide jobs for two to three hundred of Sunnydale's citizens as well as a five to eight percent total increase in the city's prosperity," David Nabbit stopped, a nervous look on his face as he forced a smile. "Not to mention considerable tax revenues for your coffers."

"Yes," Finch forced his concentration, "it sounds like a very good deal, I imagine you'll be bringing your own people in to supervise-."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Nabbit's head snapped to the door at the blood-chilling scream. "What was that-."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Another even longer screech erupted. "I don't know, but I intend to find out."

The billionaire nerd gulped and pointed when he pulled his Colt M1911 out of his desk drawer. "That's a, that's a-."

"Gun," Finch finished for the nerd as he rose and headed towards the door. "I'd advise you to get under the desk and hide."

Owen nodded as he ambled over to Larry and Lance, his two friends already at their customary seats towards the back of the lecture theatre and sat down. "Hey guys!"

The two lovers looked up at him. "Hey Owen."

He slid into his seat and glanced at the door as the lecturer entered, closing the door behind him. Professor Lester Worth was a podgy balding man in his early fifties dressed in a red cardigan and grey pants, whose eyes peered out nervously from behind his coke-bottle glasses. Word was the Prof was a volcanologist with tenure who mostly researched and wrote papers but had to do the occasional geography lecture to keep his job.

Looking at the guy's general timidity, this was going to be a really boring lecture. Owen decided there and then to get his Emily Dickinson out and read.

Harry Doyle flashed a smile to Amy and Tara as the two arm-in-arm witches entered her anthropology lecture. The moment the last of his students was sat down, she spoke. "Today, I'll discuss the work of E.B. Tylor-."

Her head snapped to the side as a steel locker flew through the window, glass flying everywhere as students screamed.

Fred Burkle waved discreetly at her friend amongst the students, Willow Rosenberg, as she entered before turning back to Gene and helping her Professor and boyfriend set up his experiment. She'd got offers to study at more prestigious universities but the cost of living was so much lower in Sunnydale and the chance to study with the boy genius Gene Rainey had been two pulls that she'd been unable to resist.

Of course, the second year here she'd been drawn into the whole Halloween mess and had discovered just how weird Sunnydale was and just why the cost of living here was just so low.

Since then she'd struggled both to get to used to the changes in herself and to keep them secret from her now-boyfriend, Gene.

Cordelia hurried into her fashion history lecture, her fellow 'Scooby' and new friend, Theresa, spying some seats towards the back, they headed there, nodding at the other students that she did. "Hey Katrina," she greeted as she sat down at the seats, the girl opposite them smiling back. "Ms. Tucson 'fashionably late' as usual."

Katrina, a graduate of Sunnydale's other high school, chuckled. "I just think you're unfashionably early for you."

"Ha, ha."

Amber Grove worked at the pharmacy trolley atSunnydaleHospitalin her position as trainee nurse, the general clutter of the ward going on around her, the smell of disinfectant thick in the air. Even as she worked, she thought about the past. Ever since her hands had mysteriously caught fire at the cheerleader try-outs, she'd known there was something strange about this town. Her parents hadn't listened of course, they never did in this town. Then Halloween had happened and she'd gone as Firestar, and been left with the power to harness the earth's energy to create weapons and even fly.

It had been a heck of an adjustment to get used to her power, worse still her group of friends had fallen apart soon after. Cordelia had gone off with that black streak of manliness, Gunn, and Harmony, Aura, and Aphrodesia had all broken off into their strange little clique. Fortunately though, the last two remaining Cordettes, Lishanne Davis and Joy Adams, had both gotten powers from Crystal and Siryn respectively, had stayed with her, and the three of them as well as well as all training to be nurses, also hung around together, secretly practicing their powers.

Even as she thought of her best friends, Lishanne rushed around the corner, her face flushed with excitement. "We have problems, big ones!"

Sergeant Riley Finn patrolled the perimeter of Sunnydale base, the mid-day sun beating down. As usual when things were quiet like they were now, his thoughts drifted back to that fateful Halloween. He, Corporal Gates and Miller had been only recently posted to the seemingly quiet town, and had been fortunate to be on leave, so they'd gone to a party with their then girl-friends. Their partners for the evening had picked out the costumes for them, Battlestar for Gates, Moon Knight for Miller, and Jack Flagg for him. He'd wanted CaptainAmericaor Nick Fury, but both those costumes had gone, while Miller would have preferred Castle but that was gone too. Gates on the other had loved his choice.

They'd not expected the chaos that seemed to have engulfed the entire town, nor the changes that had occurred to them. They probably should have told someone, but decided against it. They didn't have any idea what had happened to them, but they knew the military wouldn't believe them, and they'd end up as lab rats, not something any of them wanted.

After 'the spell', for want of a better explanation had passed, the three of them had formed a pact. They were always really careful not to use their powers too much, even so they were easily the three best soldiers on the base.

Riley half-grinned. Probably in the army to be honest. They'd all considered volunteering for Special Forces training, but had decided against it for fear the closer scrutiny would end up with having too many questions asked.

"Hey Sarge."

"Guys," he nodded to the two men stood in the mid-day shadow of one of their storerooms. "Anything shaking out there?"

Forrest lazily shook his head. "Nothing." Suddenly the black's eyes narrowed. "What the hell was that?"

"How do the orders look?" Wood queried as he strode in from the inner workshop, sweat gleaming on his forehead.

"We'll have to hire some of the others to work here the way things are going," Wesley replied as he looked up from Ms. Calendar's written business program. "We've got a number of orders come in from medieval jousting societies. Swords, lances, a few axes, some knives."

"I had to turn away an order yesterday," Wood gloomily commented.

"Oh?" Wesley looked up for clarification.

"A jousting company sent in a pricing query for three suits of armour."

"Ah," Wesley leaned back in his seat. "I'm not sure we have the expertise to construct a suit. The knowledge perhaps, but the skills?" Wesley shook his head. "I think we should stick to what we know."

"It was part of an even bigger order, shields, sword, and axes," commented Wood.

"Yes, I know it's not ideal," Wesley admitted. "However no-one within in the group has the required expertise to build suits and bringing someone from the outside to be in partnership would endanger our secrecy."

Wood considered his words before nodding. "Perhaps we could sub-contract the armour to someone else, someone outside of Sunnydale?"

Wesley nodded slowly. "It's an idea to at least cons-." Wesley spun around at a scream from outside. "What was that?"

"I don't know," Wood picked up one of their Viking broadswords, "shall we investigate."

"Indeed," Wesley picked out an European cavalry sabre, "we should."

"Okay guys," Jenny clapped her hands as she entered her computing business' office, "how's things going? Have we got things going on Mrs. Holder's order-, oooooo!" An instinctive shield shot up as the window exploded inwards, glass shards repelled by her powers. "What is that?"

Oz and Jonathan were already getting up, their faces taut with tension. "Demons!" the pair said in unison.

Xander glanced across at his business partner as they painted the fire station wall and sighed. As usual when they weren't discussing business or Slaying, Gunn was stonily silent.

Not that you could blame a guy after he'd betrayed his sister.

Xander sighed again. He'd come a long way from his days when Jesse, his heart twisted, Jonathan, andWillowwere his only friends. Even so, he hated being on the outs with any of his group.

"Owww!" he gasped as Gunn's palm crashed into his shoulder, lifting him from his feet and flinging him some eight feet away.

Freddy laughed as his girl-friend's bowl veered off line and headed towards the guttering, bouncing down the wood-planked alley. "What!" His mouth dropped when the bowl suddenly righted itself and crashed into the luminous purple skittles with a resounding thud. He looked towards Alonna. "You cheated."

"Would I?" Alonna stared innocently at him and then laughed. "Your face!"

Freddy shook his head as he glanced around the deserted bowling alley, rock music playing in the background. "No fair!" he complained with mock sad-face before joining his girl-friend in laughing. "Do you want something to eat?"

"Good idea," Alonna linked arms with him before heading towards the counter. The black's brow furrowed. "Say where are the-, ahhh!" They both hit the floor when a mutilated staff member flew over the counter and crashed to the ground four lanes down.

"What is happening here!"

"Thank you Kendra." Scott smiled at the pretty Caribbean native as she stepped back. Kendra smiled at him. "I hope you'll stay and help with the training."

"I bet you do."

Scott ignored Rona's muttered comment and Vi's giggle. "This afternoon," he turned his attention to the sat cross-legged Potentials, there were thirty of them now, the only one not here was Amanda, she was still at Giles', "we're going to work on your throws and falls. No practice mats." He smiled thinly at the shocked looks. "There's no practice mats out there, this way if you make a mistake, you'll remember it." He looked towards Rona and smiled. "Guess who you're partnered with?"

"But-," Vi's protest turned to a gulp when the door flew in, a demon stood in its entrance. "Oh no!"