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- Final Battle -

--Bad Versus Evil--

35

Spike caught the wood of the spear as its tip punctured Buffy's clothes and epidermis.

Rhamhal rolled his head around and pierced the vampire with his deep menacing eyes. Eyes set into a gaunt and brutish face outlined by a beard of pure black and raven hair that formed a widow's peak above his tall brow. His thin lips pursed in contempt.

Spike thumped him across his cheekbone.

Rhamhal returned with a fierce punch against his jaw.

Spike spun away to draw him clear of Buffy. The archfiend, son of the Devil, stepped from the trapped and sleeping Slayer and faced the nuisance vampire.

Spike, with his torn black clothes, twirled Worf's double-tipped spear. "Here's me thinking you were the Big Evil. But you hit like a girl."

The hellspawn-made-flesh, with his muscled physique, stood before him gripping his own lance. "I was saving you until last, Spike. But you couldn't wait your turn."

The vamp drew his weapons ready in both hands. Rhamhal sank his sharp tip to the floor of the glade artfully in preparation.

Spike clocked Rhamhal's nudity. "This's gonna be distracting. Haven't fought a guy naked since Angel- ... well...anyway...never mind." He jabbed his weapon abruptly to skewer Darkness but he feinted and clapped Spike's spear away with his own then sliced the point to take off his head. Spike dropped, propelling his staff in a low arc that almost took off Rhamhal's feet.

Rhamhal pulled back then stabbed forward to fork the vampire. Spike rolled away, circled, and deflected the other spear upward. With that, he tried to cut Rhamhal's open body with a slicing zigzag attack.

But nothing connected. And Spike was towing to recall the little Wing Chun he'd picked up. Spike corkscrewed his stick in a stirring motion to hold Rhamhal back, but the demonic hell-child didn't much feel like taking a break. Rhamhal stepped in and caught the twirling spear shaft with one quick hand, thrusting his lance out and lacerating the vampire's stomach.

Spike doubled in pain but his spear was still in his enemy's grip, so he shot out a leg and kicked Rhamhal away.

The Dark One smiled with glee and circled around the doomed vamp as Spike checked the deep gash across his gut. He re-thought his tactics and looked around at their surroundings. They'd drifted off to one side of the clearing now and to Rhamhal's rear lay the clump of rocks and the beginning of the wooded region.

Spike rushed him suddenly and barred their spears together. Taking hold of both staffs, he kept running, lifting Rhamhal into the air and ramming him into a tree.

Rhamhal hit the tree with a grunt and struggled to push the platinum-haired vampire away. But Spike pinned him further by forcing the spears in their hands tight against his stomach.

He looked down at Spike with hatred of his defiance. He wished to butt his head but the vamp had him trapped at too great a height. Instead he took advantage of Spike's weakness and thrust his foot into the deep cut across his abdomen. Spike roared in pain, letting Rhamhal's feet fall back to the grass, but not releasing his hold on the staffs. The villain rammed the wooden shafts into his nose and swung him around roughly. Spike fell away and rolled into a narrow track beside the rocks.

The vampire wanted to quit. He couldn't find the strength in him to stand. His stomach burned and bled and his swollen nose felt like a balloon filled with fire attached to the front of his head. He half sat up, supporting the weight of his torso with his arms behind him and looked up at Rhamhal through teary eyes.

The raven-haired naked man walked softly into the pathway that ran between the rocks and the trees with a spear in each hand. "Why do you look so afraid?" he asked of the fallen half-breed. "You have nothing to fear from me...we are kin."

He walked forward through the narrow track like a stalker and Spike, on his elbows and ass, drifted back from him.

"Join me, Spike. Help me to kill them and suffer the brief pain knowing that, when we are away from this place, I shall see the machine that defiles your mind - defiles the very nature of what you are - is removed. You will be /free/!"

"Free/?" Spike stopped his retreat. "You mean /your slave. That's not freedom. And, as for the 'nature of what I am'... You mean a /monster/, right? ... Let me tell ya something, /dickhead/,...YOU'RE the monster here...with your big plan to end the world-"

"Existence! End ALL existence!" Rhamhal corrected.

"Whatever, mate. I happen to like existence as it is."

Rhamhal wasn't winning this one with words. It occurred to him that he shouldn't even have to try. Spike was a vampire. A demon. And Rhamhal had power over the minds of such ones. Thus far, somehow, Spike had resisted his controlling force. But no longer. If Spike wouldn't join him willingly, he would enforce his will upon him. The Dark One reached out with his Mastery and thrust it upon the vampire.

Spike recoiled suddenly at the sheering mental onslaught. The raping intrusion hit like a burning dagger at the heart of his skull making the chip seem like a cheap joke shocker. He rolled over to his knees almost involuntarily and tried with one hand to hold his head together.

"Don't fight it, Spike. Let me in." He pushed in towards the kneeling blond.

Spike felt the pain growing beyond what he could bare and he edged forward as quickly as he could force his twitching limbs to move. He crawled out from the trail and out into an open stony area beyond the rocks.

"Let all your pains be released," Darkness went on. "Join with me. Gain from my strength and clarity of purpose-"

Spike, like a Phoenix enflamed, came somehow to his feet and turned to Rhamhal defiantly. His face had turned. The vampire was loose. "Look," Spike growled through his agony, "I'm really not in the mood for fightin' with words today. ...So whatya say we skip the Joss Whedon verbal assault n' settle this like a couple of uncivilised demons?"

Rhamhal snarled in disgust and finally gave up trying to push through the mental barrier. "I can live with that."

Free from the pain at last, Spike bore his fangs. "Not for long."

Rhamhal swung an arm back and threw one of the spears. Spike whipped around, catching it and swung it at the naked man. Rhamhal leapt back only to be hit suddenly as Spike crashed into him with a shoulder-barge and crushed him against the rocks. William the Bloody released his spear and let it fall to the floor. The muscles in his arms tightened to breaking point and he let off a flurry of manic punches into the dark enemy. Rhamhal took hits to the stomach, chest, ribs and head before the vampire buckled him with a grinding knee to the gut. Spike hooked his head under one arm and threw the man to the ground. He grabbed up one of the spears and shot it into Rhamhal's thigh.

He screamed out and tore the lance from his flesh, using it to stand. "Nice shot, Spike," he said. "That'll slow me down. But it won't stop me."

Spike felt a rush of confidence at the sight of Rhamhal's leg wound. It was a dark gash. There was no blood from it, which was unusual, but at least he knew now the enemy could be hurt. He wasn't so invulnerable after all. "I was aiming for yer arsehole, you... arsehole."

Rhamhal grimaced and drew himself tall. He attacked suddenly like an animal. Spike retreated, pounced onto the rocks, and rolled through the air - passing over his opponent who tried to catch him with his lance. He came down and scooped up the other weapon.

With a clatter their staffs came together and they fought. Blocking, thrusting, slicing. Neither managed another hit and both finally ended the volley with a sweeping slashing motion of the lances. Still, they missed - their spear tips passing against each other with a ring.

The pair circled each other, realising in turn they were both standing just a few feet from the precipice of a great fathomless canyon. Spike discovered this a few moments after Rhamhal when he almost backed over the edge. He reacted by diving and rolling away. When he came up, Rhamhal was facing him - his back to the cliff.

Spike had a plan. It was a touch insane but it was the only one he had. He hurled his spear at Rhamhal's feet and the Dark One stepped back to avoid it.

Darkness realised his error just in time to catch sight of the vampire as he ran into him with such force they both went plunging off the edge of the world.



*



Buffy opened her eyes slowly as vision gradually returned to her. Every inch of her skin still burned slightly with the after-effect of Darkness being ripped out of her.

She looked around quickly. She was still in the clearing but Darkness was nowhere to be seen. Her ears strained and she came to hear, briefly, the sound of a fight in the distance behind the rocks. It seemed, from the sudden silence, that the fight was over. That didn't bode well and she hastily examined her situation - her arms still clasped by the tin man.

And just how am I gonna get out of this? she pondered.



*



Spike lost his vampness to panic as he rethought his strategy a fraction too late. He fell off the cliff and managed to catch the rocky edge by a few outgrowths of roots. His body swung and struck the canyon wall painfully. But he held on and hung dangerously knowing he could survive. Because he had survived. Survived and defeated Evil. He could claw his way back to safe ground and regain his title as the Big Bad.

He heard a groan from below him and, looking down the wall of earth and rock, he saw an unbelievable thing.

Rhamhal hung from his spear - its sharp tip dug into the cliff face only a metre beneath him.

Spike almost dropped himself in shock. But his few seconds of stunned surprise cost him dearly as Rhamhal lifted himself to stand precariously on the shaft of his lance.

Spike could see what was coming. He planted his feet against the rock face and tested the strength of the roots in his hands.

Darkness bent at the knees, drawing on his inhuman power and the flex of the wooden staff, and leapt toward safety.

Spike vamped-out again and ripped out the roots as he propelled himself out of the canyon and onto hard land again. His feet touched base as something flashed beside him. Spike twisted about and met with the sharp end of the other spear.

He coughed and went suddenly limp and numb. Standing before him, Rhamhal held the Klingon spear firmly. The spear that reached into his stomach, tearing up his 6-pack, and coming out somewhere beside his spine.

Spike was lanced.

He managed a terribly meek sound from his throat before Darkness raised the spear into the air. The vampire left the floor and gravity added weight to his exhausted body. He sank onto the spear.

Rhamhal's face - full of self-gratification - drew up to his and offered him an antagonising smile. "Spike," he noted. "You may wish to change your name to /Spiked/."

At that, Rhamhal whipped the shaft of the lance around and sent the skewered vampire hurtling into the air.

Spike's body broke through the line of bamboo trees and vanished.

Rhamhal brushed his hands off with a sigh. He'd had enough distractions for one unwanted lifetime. He had only one concern. One immediate mission. And he would allow nothing to further hinder him.

He headed back to the clearing to finish off the Slayer once and for all.