FicWad

The writer wanders the halls carefully wondering what horror that he will be faced with this time as he tried to slip past the disclaimer cops. “Hold it right there you!” Minister of Magic Scrimgeour said as he and a group of Ministry lackeys blocked the fanfic writer. “Just where do you think that you are going?”

“Well ah you see.” The writer says as he takes a few hesitant steps back.

“His guilty demeanor suggests Death Eater Minister.” Percy (Wheatherbee) Weasley said in a knowing tone while looking down his nose over his horn rimmed glasses.

“Minister we do not have time for such a inconvenient thing as a trial I suggest we deal with him in a fast a way as possible if he will not confess.” Umbridge simpered at her superior.

“Good point, call in the last of the Dementors.”

“Whoa, slow down there boss, I’ll tell ya everything!” The writer says as a door off to the side creaks open and a hooded figure glides through. I the writer lay no claim whatsoever to any of the characters in this story or any of the ones in these disclaimers either.

Well?

“Uhh, you see Minister, he actually just told the truth.” Percy Weasley explained uncomfortably.

“I am aware of that, now silence him.”

"Yes of course Minister." Umbridge said with a predatory grin, and beckoned the Dementor towards the writer.

“A little help here someone!”

“All right geeze, don’t lose your shirt.” Tonks said, as she and Hermione both cast a patronus sending a silvery Otter and Werewolf at the Dementor.

“Do be sure to tell Stan high from Harry now.” Tonks said as they apparated out.

“What? Hey don’t leave me here!”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Regroup




“Oh you have got to be shitting me.” Dean said, as he looked at the number of monsters that were trying to break through the defenses of their home base. “How in the hell are supposed to get through all of that?” He questioned the others as he waved his hands at the army of the undead.

“Um, maybe the backdoor.” Sam suggested to his brother. “The army of the dead here seems to be focused more on the front, we might be able to slip past them if we tried to slip in instead of blowing our way through them.”

“I don’t know Sammy, that could be a trap just waiting to happen to us.” Dean argued back. “I’d rather blow my way through the guys I can see, than sneak around the ones that I can’t.”

“The back way in.” Angel growled at the two siblings. “If you others feel like you need to cause a distraction fine, but I need to get Buffy in for medical help now.”

“I agree with the vampire.” Duncan said as he leaned out of the window of his own car. “We need to deal with this fast though, the girl is bleeding quite a bit from those marks.” Angel, Oz and Remus all nodded in agreement as the blood was flooding their senses the most. Buffy didn’t require a whole lot of medical treatment usually, but that one hellhound’s claws had dug deeply into her back ripping the equipment vest and the back of the leather X-Man uniform apart.

“Your magic werewolf, how close can your teleportation trick get me?”

“About another hundred feet, and then you’ll have to fight your way through whatever it is that is going to get in your way and pass through that wall of flame.”

“Fine, you and the witch get ready to take two of us across.” Angel looked at the group of people who would be best in getting them across that line. “Oz, you’re out, even with wolf powers under control your obvious still weak. You might get through on your own, but not if your guarding someone.” The werewolf nodded. “As for you kids, I don’t know your abilities enough to count on you to watch my back, so you’ll have to join the others.” He turned to look at the four immortals, the watcher and the demon hunting brothers. “You two work better together stay that way.” He said nodding toward the Winchesters, leaving him with just the Immortals to choose from.

“Hey, you want the best then you want one of them to get you through.” Ritchie said gesturing to the older two Immortals. “No offense to you or anything of course Amanda.” The boy said, flashing a grin. “These guys just wrote the book on getting through messy situations. Joe and I will stay back here and um wait for you to tell us when we can go in or find a good hiding place.”

“Go with them Highlander, I think it’s time that I showed these corpses why they should have stayed in the ground.” Methos said, as he drew his sword. “What about yourself my dear?” He asked turning Amanda.

“Oh, I intend to fully enjoy myself by cutting into these things darling.” The woman said as she pulled out her own sword.

“Good let’s go.” The man said gesturing her forward.

Angel nodded in relief as the Immortal man left, something about him set him on edge for some reason, and even had his demon wary of him. After he was sure that this war was over he would try and figure out what it was that bothered him.

“Kids,” Remus said pulling the trio to the side, “try and stay with the Winchester brothers. They seem to have the most idea what it is they’re talking about out here.”

“Yes sir.” The three said, as they tightened their grips on their wands as they prepared for another battle.

“How long until we can get through those flames?” Angel asked, as the fire ring held against a dozen monsters that were instantly barbecued.

Remus pulled a bottle out of his cloak and handed it Angel. “Give her a mouthful of this, and then take a mouthful for yourself, same instructions for those of us going with you, it’s the only way to ensure that the flames won’t hurt us. It’ll only last 5 minutes though, so we must hurry.” He warned them all, the vampire nodded as he tilted the bottle into Buffy’s mouth after everyone else had a mouthful.

“Let’s go.” The vampire said, Remus nodded as he grabbed the ensouled vampire, while Tonks grabbed on to Duncan the group then apparated about five feet from the edge of the circle of fire and began running toward the encircled building.

Remus stopped as six of the creatures broke off their circling motion and came at them. The werewolf waved his wand and muttered, “animus ignis patronus,” and a small fiery looking wolf jumped out of the wand and clawed at the creatures causing the inferi to pull back into a protective circle. Remus turned and ran to join the others as another band was blocking them. Tonks sent an incendio at another that caught it in the eye. Duncan sliced through the arm of one of the creatures then did a spin kick that sent it flying into the pack of its brethren who turned on their fellow cursed one and consumed it. Angel took a breath and plunged through the flames, closing his eyes as he dove through, he looked up in surprise as he realized that he was through and that he an Buffy were both unharmed by the flames. He watched as the witch, then the werewolf and finally the Immortal landed next to him.

Angel nodded at the others, and turned around to find a gun pointed at his face, beyond the gun was a face that he remembered from one of his last trips to Sunnydale. “Riley.” The vampire growled at the soldier. “What are you doing here?”

"Could ask you the same thing Angel.” Riley returned to the dark haired vampire.

“We can discuss this after we get Buffy to the medwing.” The vampire said, walking past the soldier boy who bristled in anger, but followed after the vampire. A few others came to assist Remus and Tonks. Duncan merely abandoned them, and went to find a station that he would be good at holding.

The vampire and soldier pushed open a door and laid the wounded Slayer out on her stomach on a med bed, and then stepped back as the medical team began looking the wounds over. One person raised Buffy’s head and poured a potion down her throat while another person was cleaning and disinfecting the scratches.

“What happened to her?” One of the medics asked.

“Hellhounds.” Angel answered, as he finally turned to a glaring Riley.

“Answer this, are you here as Angel or Angelus? Because quite frankly we have enough dark beings here without the addition of another maniac who thinks it would be fun to end or take over the world.” Riley said in annoyance.

Angel smiled humorlessly at the blonde man. “No boy, its soul me, soulless me was a few days ago.”

“What?” The man said, snapping his gun back up.

Angel rolled his eyes, before he moved faster than Riley could follow and stood beside the soldier boy and yanked the rifle from the man’s hands and tossed it to one of the other soldiers in the room. “Listen to me very closely boy.” The vampire hissed at the man. “Crap happens, and I’ve been dealing with a lot of it lately, besides Willow recently restored my soul again.”

“Like we’re going to trust that backstabber?” Riley answered.

“What do you mean?”

Riley smiled grimly at this, it would prove whose side the vampire was on, and of course he might have to restrain the vampire if he really was on their side. Guess he would just have to take a chance and tell him. “Didn’t Buffy tell you? The scoobies went and kicked Buffy out of her own home and put Faith in her place.”

Angel scowled at this Buffy ‘s ‘friends’ had kicked her out that was not acceptable. “They had Faith take control?” He asked in a dark voice.

“That’s right.” Riley tensed, as he saw the vampire’s eyes shift back and forth as the man tried to reign in his infamous deadly temper.

“She’s not ready to be in control yet, are they trying to send her to the nut house?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t get me wrong Faith has come a long way from her insane days, but being in control is not what she needs right now. Besides her strategy has always been to hit as hard as you can or runaway as fast as you possibly can. She just doesn’t have the right kind of experience to deal with what is to come nowhere near what Buffy has at least. Besides, she has to many personal demons, and lack of confidence to lead these girls right now. She may hide it pretty well, but she’s not ready for that kind of pressure, one mistake and she may try and hide herself from them all over again.”

Riley shook his head at this. “Not going to happen, Buffy already talked sense to her earlier, not sure what was said but it seemed to put a spark back in her step after her one command decision screw up.”

Angel nodded in relief, he had not been looking forward to another fight with Faith to get her to see reason. “So what is the working relationship between the soldiers and the potentials?”

“We follow Buffy’s orders, who is having trouble learning how to let her people do the work while she oversees it.” Riley looked at Buffy who was still knocked out.

“Does it help that we were chased into that fight?” Angel asked, “besides, she’s been the muscle and the plan for so long that she’s having trouble now that she actually has some real resources.” Riley nodded in grudging agreement. “All right, keep her comfortable Riley, I want see if there is a way to back through that fire.”

“How did you get through that fire in the first place?”

“Frozen Essence.” The MediWitch answered, “it’s an advanced potion that looks like a common poison.”

“That’s comforting,” Angel replied, “is it common to have some with you?”

“On combat missions like this it is, though usually only potion masters carry a number of potions.”

“You got to be glad that we brought the Weasley brothers though eh Vampire?” Another person in robes said with a grin. “Imagine using an Egyptian fire prison to keep those inferi off.” The man shook his head in amazement as he walked into the room. “Now what were you doing in town anyways? I thought all the vampires had run away to their various hideouts till this mess with the First is over.”

“I’m not quite like other vampires” Angel responded to the wizard,,” and Spike you can come out from behind the corner.”

The blond strode from around the doorway and leaned casually against the wall. “Hullo Peaches. Welcome back to good old Sunnyhell.” The blond vampire’s eyes drifted to where Buffy was lying on the med bed before he turned back to his grandsire. “Not back in town a full day and Buffy is already back on a hospital bed, ever think that this could be a sign?” The vampire shook his head in mock amazement.

“You and I can argue later Spike, I have bigger fish to fry right now.” Angel growled at his grand-childe.

“Really, like who?” The blonde asked with interest.

"Like the First, and then I have to deal with Xander, Willow and Giles.” The dark-haired vampire answered. “They hurt Buffy for the last time.”

Spike shook his head sadly at the other vampire. “I wish that was true mate, but unfortunately she’s not only forgiven the useless sods, but she is even allowing them to help out in this fight. And you know as well as I do that if you do anything to them that they’ll go and tattle to her about how the big bad vampire was being mean to them.” Spike then shot the vampire a wolfish grin.” Not that we really need the blighters help with all the backup we got here now.”

“Now that you mention it who are all these people?” Angel asked turning to Riley. “Some of them I recognize, like some of the Immortals, but who are all the others?”

Riley grinned at this. “Why these are Buffy’s family Angel, her great uncle is one of the senior officers in the military group here, we have wand waving witches and wizards Hermione Granger is a cousin of Buffy’s, the Charmed Ones are also cousin’s mutants like Cyclops and Havoc, Buffy’s family uncle is here as well, perhaps you’ve heard of him? The name Conner McLeod mean anything to you? We also have the Winchesters, and a few farmer families with us as well from Hazzard and Smallville.”

Angel gaped for a moment. “Buffy has familial connections to the Highlander, The Charmed Ones, and the Winchesters? Is this John Winchester or his kids?”

“It’s the junior brigade Peaches, but they seem to know their stuff well enough.” Spike said indifferently slightly miffed that Riley was the one that got to tell Angel that bit of news.

“And Hermione Granger?” Angel asked, as he rounded on Spike. “I suppose you forgot that she’s connected to a well known British wizard as well? There’s supposed to be three of them, took on a Dark Wizard Lord all on their own once, and they were only eleven year olds or something like that.”

“Yeah, they’re all here, adults don’t seem to think too much of em though since they were left on guard duty at your place.”

“Wait a minute, those three kids were the Hogwarts trio?” Angel said turning on Remus.

“Yes, they are the Hogwarts trio, and I just left them.” Remus growled at the vampire as he looked at Buffy. “They want nothing more than to be children, yet the moment they tried to do that they lost probably the most important person that they could have.”

Angel nodded in understanding. “So it’s true then, Albus Dumbledore is really dead?” He questioned in mild shock. “I thought those were supposed to be rumors or something of the like.”

“Bloody hell, I didn’t think anyone could take that wand waver out. So old Al is gone and not coming back?” Spike asked in surprise, he hadn’t heard any of the magical world gossip recently since he had been a bit busy fighting on the hellmouth

“Yes, I know how you feel, but I’m afraid that Headmaster Dumbledore is truly dead.” Remus shoulders sagged at this statement. “You knew him? I didn’t know that Albus knew any ensouled vampires and something like that would have made for interesting dinner conversation to him.”

Angel and Spike nodded in understanding. “You misunderstand us we knew each other mainly by reputation, though I did have one fight with him. Spike here had only recently been turned, Dumbledore must have been oh nearly forty at the time.”

“Yeah, we actually stumbled upon the wizard world quiet by accident. Can’t say it wasn’t an entertaining experience though.” Spike said with a grin.

“It was interesting,” Angel admitted, “we had fed off a wizard who thought that he could make some easy money by collecting vampire dust and blood for some rare potions, and rather than ask for the blood he decided he would just take it.”

“Yeah, the bloody wanker actually had the gall to attack us in our own crib, and on his lonesome as well. Can you believe the nerve of that? Trying to take on the Scourge of Europe by yourself? The guy made a good snack though, and while we were digesting the blood and all, we were able to see everything that was hidden before.”

“Yes, we spent about eight months in your community before the wizards finally realized what was going on and their Ministry tried to drive us out.”

“Tried?” Remus asked interest.

“Yep, blighters didn’t realize how strong we were, and Dru made it nearly impossible to sneak up on u. Spike said as he told the werewolf of their exploits. It didn’t hurt that we all knew enough Wicca magic to make the wizarding lot regret ever coming at us. A few minions that we had sired though were taken out like they were nothing though by this one wizard though. He an Angel had a bit of a scuffle over that as I recall. Angel got his side burned pretty badly, and Al got his nose crushed so badly not even magic could make it completely straight after that.”

“You mean that’s why Dumbledore had such a crooked nose?” Remus asked I thought that it was because of his brother.

“Yes, I’m the one that made the crooked nose permanent and thanks to my vampire healing I didn’t have the wounds I got for more than a few days.” Angel bragged. “We can worry about that later though, we have a small group stuck outside cause we needed to get Buffy through as fast as possible. I also want to tear the scoobies apart.” The vampire added as an afterthought.

“I think you’ll have to get in line mate, sides you know the Slayer almost as well as I do. No lasting damage is gonna be allowed on them.” Spike informed his grandsire, Angel bristled at the comment that Spike might actually know Buffy better than he did these days.

Spike smirked as his grandsire before he turned to the werewolf. “So, is there any way to get out of here, or are we all going to need some of this frozen essence stuff?”

“I wish,” Remus said, “but I doubt that the firewall is going to last much longer if those inferi keep attacking like they were earlier.”

“I need to inform the colonel about that then.” Riley said, as he pulled his radio out and began talking into it. Angel listened in as a sarcastic man answered him back. “Out sir.” Riley said with a roll of his eyes. “I swear that sarcasm is a genetic trait for this family, along with a trait for finding trouble that is.”

“And here I thought it was the majority of blue and green eyes that were the genetic trait here soldier boy.” Spike said, as he pulled a cigarette out of his duster, and ignoring the pointed looks of the various medical personal sent him as he lit up.

“We need a way to get the others back before they get hurt.”

“Regroup.” The Slayer muttered.

“What was that Slayer?” Spike asked, dousing the cigarette and leaned over with the other two to check on the wounded Slayer.

The three men turned to look at the young woman as she opened her bleary eyes at the group of her former lovers, who were all united in the fact that they wanted to win this fight then get her out of her town and probably away from her friends. Too bad for them though this was her town and her problems with her friends were just that, her problems. “Regroup,” she repeated, “regroup everyone back here, that means the potentials as well, those zombies are dangerous, we don’t want them to try and overrun the Potentials or the groups that are out there.”

“Hate to admit it, but she’s making sense.” Spike said scowling, as he glared at a random object since he couldn’t be mad at the Slayer for doing some common sense. Movement of her people was required now that one of the big bads had all of those corpses to use as a disposable army.

“Do it.” Angel agreed nodding.

Riley bit back a remark as he reached for his radio. “This is Captain Finn, by order of Commander Summers all units are to return to the command center, this order includes Potentials as well. Watch your step people there are zombies out there, wizards prepare to start transferring people across the barrier we got.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You heard them X-Men, we need to go.” Scott said, as he blasted at an inferi that was trying to walk over the other Inferi heads and attack them.

“Love to big brother, how about you tell us how we’re going to do that though!” Havoc questioned, as he blasted through another group of the monsters.

Storm created a tornado that collected a bunch of the inferi and dropped them into a burning building. “Scott’s right we have to go, but how are we leaving though?”

“Give me a second.” Cyclops said, he turned and saw that Conner McLeod was spinning with a burning blade in either hand hacking and slashing like a Hawaiian torch dancer, he usually only hit a monster a glancing blow but each shot lit a part of a monster that was consumed with flames. Xander Harris, the soldiers and the potentials hacked away with their own flaming weapons, they were not making as many surgical blows as the Immortal Highlander, but still sending a number of the monsters to their fiery graves. Flitwick had charmed a few balls of blue fire to fly around the group creating a minor offensive defense that was allowing the various witches and wizards to move with slightly more confidence.

Flaming chains shot out of one wizard’s wand, while another inexpertly tried to use a giant fire whip. Flitwick shook his head at this as he sent more small fires at the inferi. One of the soldiers had not dared to use a flaming blade, but had stuck with his automatic shotgun and the wizards were begrudgingly admitting that the muggle device was slowing the approaching army since the soldier was blasting the limbs off of the inferi tripping the monsters up or shooting them dead in the chest so that they were flung back into their companions.

“Any ideas yet?”

I’m thinking I’m thinking. The mutant returned at whoever was questioning him. “Nightcrawler how long would it take you to get everyone to the roof?” Cyclops asked, as he sent a wide-angle beam out.

“I do not know Cyclops but I can try.” The blue furred mutant said as he sliced the heads off a couple of monsters before back flipping out of the reach of three others. “But I would not be able to do much more than move you to the top of a building, and then we would have the same problem all over again.”

“Perhaps we should have left with the trucks eh?” Conner asked, as he skewered one inferi, and caught three more on fire with the back swipe of his other blade.

“Hindsight is 20/20 ya’ll.” Luke said over the radio, as he scanned the rooftops for a way to stop the mass of undead from swarming his cousins and their friends.

“Everyone of you better grab a muggle or whatever it is they are.” Flitwick commanded, as he sent the last of his fireball shield toward the inferi and then apparated away and reappeared beside the Duke boys.

“Ready?” he asked as he grabbed them by their legs.

“Just set us down by the General Lee little fella and let us do our thing.” Bo told the Charms teacher.

“Very well then, hang on” The tiny professor squeaked, he then apparated the three of them down to the bright orange stock car.

Grinning the two cousins slid into the car while the small man disappeared again with a loud crack. “All right cousin, let’s see if we can’t distract these things a bit so that the rest of the family can get going.” Bo said.

“Cousin I do believe that sounds like a plan.” The General Lee sped down the alley and came around the corner. The stockcar slid around and the two brothers crawled halfway out of the car and retrieved their arrows and launched the last of their arrows into the zombies. A chunk of the creatures turned to them and Luke fired again as Bo slid back in and gunned the engine before he placed the General Lee in a slow reverse, while the creatures began slowly chasing after them. Luke finished off the last of the arrows and saw that they still had a number of dynamite sticks left. Shrugging the dark haired farmer grabbed at the crate and placed it on the hood and lighted the sticks one at a time and began tossing them into the inferi. He did that until there were about ten sticks left and watched as the last of the defenders finally left. Leaving just the two cousins in their stock car on the street. Luke worked on the sticks for a moment until he had tied the last ten sticks together, and tied a forty second fuse onto the sticks. As long as nothing smothered the flames they were going to have a real good bang soon. He placed the box down on the street and slid back into the General.

“Go! Go! Go!” Luke yelled, the General Lee spun around and zoomed down the road, Bo turned the car down another lane, and continued down that way until a large explosion came from where they had just been.

“You think you might have added a little bit much there cousin?” Bo yelled as the ground shook.

“No, not really, you saw as well as I did how many of those things there were, and the wizards had gotten everyone else out of the way so I was free to do my thing.” Luke defended himself as the General Lee swerved to miss chunks of buildings and street that were raining down on them.

“Cousin, sometimes I think the Marines made you a bit explosive happy.” Bo said, as the General Lee burned rubber and headed back towards the main base.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Giles sighed in despair and relief as he heard the order for everyone to come in, it meant that for now any all petty grudges were being put to the side so that they could work together on figuring a way to stop the First. He turned to look at Mr. Logan, who was busy breaking and pushing arrows out of a couple of potentials who had been shot. “Everyone gather weapons, and anything you can carry in your hands, we are not going to be able to take much if any personal items.”

“Yeah you’ll have to go all Spartan.” Faith hissed, as Dawn was wrapping her arm.

“Sorry,” the girl said.

“Don’t worry little D, it’ll take more than that to keep me down for long.” Faith said, flashing one of her cocky grins at the teenager.

“Yes Dawn, like all of you Faith happens to be extremely stubborn when it comes to admitting that she might actually be worse off than she really is.” Giles said dryly as he watched the various girls grab their equipment.

“It’s no big G, sides I’ll heal eventually.”

“Be as that may, you are not as fast a healer as Mr. Logan, and you are not invulnerable like Mr. Kent and now Miss. Rogue are.” Giles said, glaring at the dark haired slayer.

“Whatever.” The Slayer said as she began playing with her lighter.

Rogue shifted nervously, Mr. Giles was right she was still super strong somehow, and her skin was still just as tough as it had been when she first absorbed Kal-El. None of this made any kind of sense though, after a little bit of time she was supposed to lose the extra powers that she had not keep them after nearly an hour and a half after getting them, the powers and the memories to use them were all there. As if it wasn’t bad enough not being able to touch someone, but now she had to deal with the fact that she also had to be careful when she tried to hug someone. Hell, she would have to be careful with just shaking someone’s hand!

“Hey, it’s all right.” Clark tried to assure her with a grin as he looked at the girl.

“Easy for you to say.” Rogue snapped at the alien farm boy. “You don’t happen to be an energy vampire with no control.”

Clark’s eyebrows rose at this, she had no control, but that meant that she hadn’t even had a choice whether or not she got Kal-El’s powers. The minute they had skin-to-skin contact the energy drain had started. Clark shivered at this, she had been willing to sacrifice her mind and body to weaken Kal enough so that Clark could get back up and hurt him. And what had she gotten in return? Powers that made her almost as dangerous as he was, she now had two of his three most used powers with an extra if you counted the flying abilities.

“I’m sorry.” Clark said, squeezing her on the shoulder using enough force so that she could actually feel it.

“Whatever.” The girl said shrugging his hand off as she stormed away.

Clark wanted to go after her, but another figure walked right up to him and shook their head. “Not now wonder boy.” Shadowcat said, crossing her arms as she watched her friend sit down next to Logan and cry into his shirt. “She has enough things right now without you trying to apologize for something that is almost not your fault.”

“What do you mean almost?” Clark asked in confusion wondering how the girl figured that he was to blame.

“Simple, if you had bothered to learn how to fight, then maybe you could have had one up on your dark side.” The girl snapped at him in annoyance. “But you like just being this manly man who has no idea what they’re doing don’t you? Think of this though, if you ever come up against someone who’s your equal again or even superior in power, you’re going to be on the ropes unless you learn how to fight.”

“But with my powers...” Clark started.

“Powers that you’ve just been shown were the equal to, and what happens when your powers are on the fritz or something like that?” Kitty questioned him frustrated that he didn’t get it.

“Um well.” Clark said unsure how to answer that particular question.

“You’d be dead, that’s what. Now enough of this, we need to figure the safest way to get from here back to base, and unless you want to become the super express we need to find another way to get all of us across.”

“That is one nice thing about this being a small town.” Clark said with relief.

“Yeah, so Mr. Giles, you have any ideas on how to get from here to there with about a million hungry zombies getting in between us?”

“I’m afraid I am currently without any possible ideas.” Giles admitted, “Do you have any ideas.”

“Yeah, don’t bother trying to sneak out, the Hand may have pulled back, but they’re still around, and are probably waiting to see what the next move over here is before they try anything else.”

“So you believe that they’ll attack while we’re all out in the open then?”

“That’s right,” Logan said as he came over and joined the conversation. “Especially after what that Slayer over there did to their Jounin. Before it was just a job to them. Now it’s a whole matter of honor to them to take you people out. Course, since we all helped we’re on that list as well, which don’t mean much since Kitty and I were already pretty high up on their list for a few other things we did to them.”

“I see.” Willow said dully, as she tried to process what was happening, it had been a while since someone had actually tried to attack the house like they had, if she wanted to be perfectly honest she never had seen such a large attack against them, sure the super vamp and Glory had both attacked them here, but really that was about it kind of made her realize that her world was changing since there had been a great big bad battle right outside. There was also the fact that Amy had once again returned, despite all of the warnings that she had been given, she just kept on coming back for more and more no matter what she did to try and appease her. It may actually come down to the fact that she and Amy would actually have to do the whole mega witch fight, which so did not come up on her list of top ten things to do right now.

“So how do we get out of here then?” Andrew asked as he looked out the window fearfully.

“We’re gonna have ta fight our way out bub, that’s the only way I can see us getting through this mess.”

“And how do we fight a few hundred ninja?” Giles asked, he gestured at the various people in the room. “In case you hadn’t noticed not all of us can stand up to a dozen ninja at once.”

“I know, we need a distraction, which is where Rogue comes in. Ya think ya can distract em long enough darlin, while the farm boy here is working on getting everyone to the base?”

“I can try,” The mutant replied, “besides even they’ll notice when the houses their hiding in begin to fall on top of them.”

“We’ll do our best then. Kent I want you to make sure you can find a clear path to the base, or at the very least a good spot to hide out.”

“Right,” the Kryptonian said, as he got ready to slip out the back door and begin running, trying to find the best route for them to take. Unfortunately he wasn’t at his best right now after running all over the world because of Kal-El he was drained and needed time to get back to 100 if he was going to continue like this.

“Do you think I have the strength to do this?” Clark asked worriedly, “I’ve never run with someone before, what if I tear them apart by going too fast?”

“E.T. has a point there,” Faith said as she held onto her arm while Dawn tied the bandages off. “You all saw how he wasn’t there then he was there, you really think any of us can survive at that speed? Shit.” She growled out as disinfectant was poured into her wound.

“Sorry.” Dawn repeated, as she used the sleeve of one of her sweatshirts to finish the wrapping on Faith’s arm.

“No big, I’ll be good in a little bit.”

“Uh huh.” Robin said disbelievingly from where he was treating wounded.

“So how do we get them all out of here then?” Clark asked, “if we can’t be sure that I can do it.”

“You get help.” Minerva McGonagall said, as she stepped out of the shadows.

“That’s close enough until we can be sure you’re real.” Kennedy said, as she aimed her crossbow at the Hogwarts Headmistress. The witch stopped, but pursed her lips in annoyance at the weapon that was pointed at her.

“Easy there, she’s real.” Clark said, as he got between the lead potential and Headmistress.

“How can you be sure?”

“X-ray vision.” Clark explained to her, as he took the weapon out of her hands. “If she wasn’t real then we’d have to deal with the fact that she was the First, but she isn’t.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?” One of the other potentials asked curiously.

“I don’t think I can breathe underwater, but I can hold my breath for a long time.”

“Excuse me.” McGonagall said as she looked at the group of teenagers in annoyance.

“Yes?” Giles asked tiredly.

“Mr. Giles, good someone somewhat responsible. I am going to have you all port-keyed to the headquarters.”

“All of us, or just certain people?” Giles asked curiously.

“All of you, however you will have to be far enough away from the wards that someone managed to put in place since we last used a port-key here.” The witch explained to the Watcher.

“Will this one have us landing with a gun pointed at us as well?” Giles asked her.

“No,” the Headmistress admitted, while frowning in confusion over what a gun was. “In fact you will have to portkey in about a hundred feet away from the base.

“And why is that?” Giles asked.

“Because, the man who made the wards we are using is currently near unconscious from making a defense that would destroy any of the inferi that dared to come in contact with the wards, unfortunately the ward is extremely draining to maintain and will fall shortly.” McGonagall answered shortly not used to having people question why she did things.

“And inferi are what exactly?” One of the potentials asked curiously. “I mean I thought it was bad enough with vampires, ninja demons, Caleb, the First, and Bringers. Do we really need to add more things to the list of things trying to kill us?”

McGonagall pursed her lips as she considered her answer. “I believe muggles refer to them as zombies.”

“Zombies, who activated zombies?” Willow asked in surprise.

“You-Know-Who did, a powerful dark wizard,” she explained to the confused looks that they all had, “and as near as we can tell he has activated every single dead body in all of the graveyards has been transformed by his magic.”

“Whoa, hold it rewind there for a moment.” Robin said, as he looked the witch in the eyes despite the haunted look he had. “Are you sure it’s only in the graveyards, or is it everywhere in town?”

The witch frowned in confusion at this question. “Why does that matter?”

“Oh no reason,” Dawn said as she grabbed a short sword, “we just happen to have a half a dozen girls buried out in the backyard, we just want to know if we need to worry about them trying to kill us or if they’ll behave for us and stay dead.”

“That is a good question, and I have no way to be sure,” the witch, admitted, “the information we have is not the best and we can’t be sure of anything really at this moment.”

“Dawn, Anya, Robin I think we are alright here for the moment.” Giles said confidently, as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

“And how can you be sure of that Mr. Giles?” One of the girls asked, as she stared out the window fearfully, as if expecting to see the previously mentioned girls coming out of the ground to kill them all.

“Because if they had risen, and were going to attack us they would already have done so, and we would not just now be hearing about the possibility of it now.” The former watcher admonished them all, but the Scoobies all noticed that Giles didn’t look perfectly certain as he assured the potentials. “Now then, instead of worrying about a possible attack and enemies, can we please focus on the ones that we actually know exist for the moment?” Giles calmly picked up a book from the bookshelf, though his hands were twitching to clean his glasses and drink a pot of tea right about now.

“I couldn’t agree more.” McGonagall said, as she stared at the group of scared girls and a handful of others. “Now then, we will want to leave in a neat and orderly fashion.”

“What is this, a fire drill?” Wolverine asked, while rolling his eyes at the way the witch was going about it. “You kids listen, Rogue, Kent, Kitty and I will guard the way out. The rest of you have to get on out of here.”

“I’m staying too.” Faith said, as she stood up, her face was pale but she stood under her own power even if there was the occasional tremor.

“No can do kiddo, your arm is going to take all night to heal at the rate it looks now.” Logan said, nodding to the bloody bandaged shoulder.

“Buffy told me to protect them though.” Faith returned stubbornly.

“Then get them out of here, we’ll follow after you once you’re gone.” Kitty assured the dark haired slayer.

“Can you escape after we’re gone?” Willow asked dubiously of the teenage girl before her. “I mean, I know you were all kicking ninja butt earlier and all, but can you do it again and make it to the base? I mean there are a lot of them and all.”

“Long as Rogue’s new powers hold out we can fly there.” Wolverine said without concern, confident in Rogue and her abilities both old and new ones.

“You’re crazy.” One of the potentials said.

“Thank ya darlin.” Wolverine said, as he walked toward the door to see if the others were ready.


Clark, Rogue Shadowcat, Rogue and Wolverine stood at the ready while the potentials gathered up the last of their wounded and weapons. “Go,” McGonagall said, as she shifted back into her tabby cat form and ran out the door, the others followed after the cat as best they could. The potentials were ignored, but a few throwing blades bounced around Faith’s feet as she juked and jived going slower than all the others, hoping that she could buy the others the time that they needed to get clear.

“Faith let’s go!” Robin shouted, gesturing her onward but she ignored the man as she bounced off the white mail box that Mrs. Summers had loved. Faith looked over her shoulder and up at Buffy’s window, a window that the blonde slayer had slipped out of numerous times as a teenager shattered, and Rogue came flying out while Kent and Wolverine came flying out the front door and she presumed that Ghost girl had slipped out the back door. Faith caught an arrow in her hand threw it back, and then began to run after the others hoping that these people could give them the chance that they needed to get away and regroup with Buffy and the others. She ran up to the others who were crouched next to an old tire at the end of the block. The cat-woman nodded at Faith as the slayer touched the tire, the woman was already making with her mojo, and then they disappeared with a loud popping sound.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ritchie, Amanda, the Winchesters, Oz, Daniel and the two remaining soldiers stole their way around the building, as they looked for another way in or a place that they could wait for the others to come up with a rescue plan. Dean checked the rounds he had left for his shotgun and frowned, they were running low on ammo. If they didn’t restock soon they would be out, he and Sam had divided the last of what they did have, and had even grabbed their machetes and some throwing blades before hiding the black cars that they had come in.

“So, any ideas on what our next move should be?” Ron asked the adults around them, his red hair stood out even with all the flames around them.

“Not off the top of my head kid.” One of the soldiers grumbled.

“We need to fall back until we can get far enough away from these guys Dean.” Sam said, as he looked at the army that was uselessly throwing themselves against the fire shield.

“Indeed you should.” Teal’c said, as he stepped out of the shadows, “fortunately we have taken over one of their bases and can operate from there with little worry.”

Dean, Ritchie and Harry all threw small rocks at the man, and sighed with relief when they bounced off the big Jaffa’s chest.

The warrior raised his eyebrow slightly causing Hermione to blush at what her friend had just done. “Harry, what do you think you’re doing?” She hissed at her friend in mortification. “He just offered to help us, and you throw a rock at him?”

Harry shrugged and looked a bit embarrassed before muttering. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It was kiddo.” Dean assured him, as he pushed the group after the Jaffa. “We had to make sure that he was really real, it just happened that three of us thought of it at the same time.”

“Indeed, it was a wise precaution to take before blindly following after me.” Teal’c said to them over his shoulder. “Had I been the First I may have lead you directly into a trap and you would have all been dead.”

“Why didn’t you then?” Hermione asked the quiet werewolf that walked beside them.

“Smelled him.” The werewolf said simply, as he followed the others.

“Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell anyone then?” Ron demanded.

“No one asked.” Hermione’s mouth dropped open, and she froze for a moment before she was pushed from behind to keep moving.

The group followed silently after Teal’c to the building across the street from the flaming building. “In here.” The Jaffa said, as he lead them through the doorway and into another room filled with various types of computer setups.

“What is all this stuff?” Sam asked as he eyed the setups.

“This is a weapons array control center, in here we can control the weapons that are mounted in various places on this building.”

“There’s a catch ain’t there?”

“Indeed Dean Winchester. The weapons must first each be powered up and repaired since many of them were damaged when we took control of the base. The main problem we are currently having is that the technology here is a combination of Tau’ri and Goa’uld. Daniel Osborne, Samuel Winchester, I believe that you shall both be of some use to me if your computer skills are on par with the task before us. Daniel Jackson will translate the Goa’uld for you.” The three men nodded and headed toward a couple of empty computer terminals. “As for the rest of you, you must set up a defensive ring of our own that will protect us, or we shall be overrun as we did to this place earlier. We were fortunate that we only lost two warriors during that particular attack, but I fear that before this day is through they shall both be sorely missed along with many others.”

“Who did you lose?”

“Harry Potter, I am afraid we lost Master Bra’tac and your First battle leader, Auror Mad-Eye-Moody.”

“They got Moody?” A stunned Ron said in shock as he stared disbelievingly at the big man. “No, we can’t have lost him as well.” The red head said shaking his head in disbelief.

“Not now Ron.” Harry snapped at his friend before he turned back to Teal’c. “What do we do?”

“Secure the area for now.” Teal’c said, as he turned back to the computers and two computer whizzes.

“All right, you three go with the soldier boys, I’ll go with the pretty lady here, while the old man and sword boy take another route and we’ll start a patrol around the place sound good? Dean asked the group, as he sidled up beside Amanda. The others nodded and each took a separate route.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Moody and Bra’tac limped down the street they had avoided the various monsters that had been walking down the street in the same direction as they were going. “I do not like the fact that there are so many of these beings here.” The former First Prime said, as he watched as a few hundred of the creatures staggered down the steps.

“You and me both, this entire mess is going to be hard to gain control of, especially now that Voldemort has caused all of these inferi to rise.”

“We shall just have to hope that we can join with our comrades in arms then before it is too late.”

“That we do, that we do.” The two men continued making their way towards the base that they had left.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The group of potentials landed in a disorganized heap in an alley. Faith’s mouth dropped open as she saw the whole ring of fire thing that was going on around the place that was being used as home base. The thousands of monsters that were attempting to break through the wall of flames and burning up was pretty impressive as well. “I heard of out of the frying pan and into the fire yo, but this is ridiculous.” She grumbled, as she got to her feet.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Faith on this.” Giles said, as he adjusted his glasses. “Like a moth unto the flame.” He said as he watched the creatures fling themselves into the wall of flame. He was about to say something else when a series of pops sounded behind them they all turned around to see a number of witches, wizards, mutants, soldiers, potentials and Xander standing there, though a number of them looked the worst for wear.

“Whoa easy there, we come in peace.” Xander exclaimed putting a flaming sword into a guard position between him and the weapons the other potentials pointed at him.

“Xander, you’re all right!” Dawn said with a grin, as she gave the man a quick bone-breaking hug. “We heard about the zombies and wondered how many of them were going to want to start dating you.”

“Hey!” Xander whined at one of his best friends sister.

“Sorry, but we did have a pretty good reason to be worried.” Willow pointed out with a wry grin of her own, as she gave her best friend a relieved hug.

“Yeah, but do you have to be so honest about it?” Xander joked back at the two.

“We need to find a secure location until we can think of a way past those monsters and the fire ward, any ideas where that would be?” McGonagall asked, as she gave the group of relieved friends a harsh glare at their humor.

“Yeah, this way.” A voice growled, they all turned and saw Mad-Eye Moody and Bra’tac standing there the both of them looked the worst for wear, but were both standing under their own power despite the pained grimaces they wore.

“Yeah, we know where the perfect place is, and its right across from that flaming place so it’ll be a good place to hole up at till it’s safe to move across the street.”

“You are assuming that it will at some point be safe to cross the street Moody my friend.” Bra’tac pointed out to the grizzled old wizard.

Mad-Eye gave his Jaffa counterpart a grin. “Think of it as the ultimate piece of the training that you love.”

“Only if you will remain constantly vigilante during the battle.” Bra’tac joked back at his companion.

“I think I can keep up my end.” Moody growled at the First Prime accepting the challenge that had been offered to him.

“And I mine.” The First Prime said not about to be out done by the wizard.

The wizards shook their heads as Mad-Eye Moody acted as if he had found his second half. “Enough of this,” McGonagall ordered, “we need to get everyone to safety now.”

“Follow then.” Bra’tac ordered, and with a sweep of his cloak was leading them towards the building. He and Moody walked up the steps lightly and knelt by the door.

"Clear." Moody growled and Bra’tac opened the door and ushered everyone in.

"Signal for Teal’c with your radio, he should be somewhere on the inside of this building, then tell him that we are going to be out there hunting the creatures of the night." Bra’tac informed one of the soldiers who nodded, as he took the lead along with Nightcrawler and headed into the building. The two Dukes nodded a greeting and the two battle-worn soldiers nodded as the two cousins finally joined back up with them, they each carried a pack with a new supply of arrows and dynamite.

"Come my friend, now we can hunt them now that they are all safe."

"Aye this will be fun." The two drifted into the shadows to begin hunting for the various creatures that the night still held.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jack O’Neill sighed as he watched another wave of zombies fry against the shield, the flames were slowly but surely getting lower and lower, sooner or later they would be gone. When that did happen they wouldn’t have anyone of the wand wavers to help them since they had all poured their power into charging the ring of fire. He had told the men to hold their fire, but occasionally when a really big group formed someone would launch an AN-M14 TH3 scattering the zombies before they could pile onto the wall. They were currently stuck with this waiting game, trying to see which side cracked first, would the town run out of zombies first, or would the ring of fire fail before the zombies were all turned into crispy critters?

He didn’t know how the hell people were supposed to make it back to base with the kinds of odds facing them out there. He hoped that the Slayer hadn’t made a bad command choice, even if he knew intellectually that they needed to get everyone back together so they could figure out what the hell was going on. They had gotten a bit cocky with their increased numbers, of course that cockiness had been stopped easily enough after a few skirmishes. On the bright side though, they had come out ahead in those fights when you actually looked at the numbers for the most part. At least he thought they had that is.

“Any news Carter?” He asked his teammate and friend.

“No sir, things are still the same as they were earlier. And sir, the number of creatures out there isn’t getting smaller it’s getting bigger.”

The colonel winced as he heard that bit of news. “Well, as long as we’re all having fun.” Jack said, as he watched the formerly human figures getting together for another attack run. He could only hope that raising this many dead and controlling them would weaken the dark wizards as much as the ring of fire had their wizards.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“We are nearly ready Dean Winchester, another half hour and we should be ready to begin turning the guns on can you and your people stand by at the places we tell you to?” Teal’c questioned.

“Yeah sure big guy, no problemo.” Dean said into his radio.

“Good. Prepare yourself Dean Winchester, there is a large force heading your way.”

“We understand.” Amanda said, as she took the radio and stuffed it back in Dean’s Jacket. “Shall we go?”

“Lead on babe.” The two rounded the corner and Dean brought his gun up and Amanda her sword as they faced Nightcrawler and the soldier. “Oh it’s you guys,” Dean said as he lowered his gun, “I thought that you were actually somebody.”

“Funny Winchester.” The soldier growled out, as he radioed the others that they had made contact with friends.

“Yo big guy, we got what looks like the remains of the museum team here.” Dean reported into his radio.

“That is good news, have anyone proficient with a computer report here. The rest of them should begin setting up patrols.” The Jaffa returned over the radio.

“You got it.” Dean returned, he then clicked the radio off again and looked the people over. “All right, you heard him, all you computer savvy people need to go with gorgeous here. He said waving his hand at Amanda who took the time to give a bow.”The rest of you need to find places in which to set up guard positions. Till we can figure a way to regroup with the rest of our forces and kick those guys out of the way we’re stuck here.”

“Indubitably a wise course of action my young gun toting friend.” Beast said, as he Willow and Xavier followed after Amanda. Dean blinked a few times as he realized that he was now going to have to deal with all of the various potentials as well. He looked over at the really hot looking woman with her arm in a sling. “Take your wounded and find a place to rest. Course if you want I could probably give you a sponge bath later.” He offered her with a grin.

Faith grinned licking her lips as she looked at the blond before her. “Tempting as that might be stud, the fact is that I’m not quite as limber as I usually am and B would probably hurt me if I bedded you. Not mention it might make Robin a bit jealous. You know how it is with having the beginning of a relationship a bit messed up by the drifter I’m sure you’re almost as good at it as I am.”

“Hey, I am oh so much better than you at it.” Dean defended himself.

“Right.” The slayer drawled out disbelievingly, as she looked him up and down one more time before she actually sauntered past him despite the makeshift sling she was wearing.

Dean watched her pass before he shook his head in disbelief, he sent a cocky grin at a dark skinned bald man. “What?”

“Nothing,” the man said coolly as he took a number of the girls along with some of the witches and wizards to find a room where they could rest up.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Teal’c looked up as three new figures joined them, the first two were the hok’taur he knew slightly having conversed with them earlier, the red haired Tau’ri mystic was with them as well. He remembered that their briefing had included what was known about the group known as the scoobies, and remembered that she along with Daniel Osborne had both been offered high paying government jobs in the Tau’ri business world upon their graduation for their computer skills.

“It is good that you are here, we need to finish reprogramming these weapons as fast as possible, and it will allow those that are hidden behind the fire wall to get a chance to think on how we are to make it across.”

“Of course, it ought to be a most fascinating undertaking.” Hank McCoy said, as he bounced toward a terminal and began working occasionally asking for assistance when a word in Goa’uld came up. Teal’c sighed with relief, a several hour project would now only take another half hour if you included the time it took to reconnect the weapons this was a good thing. The combined teamwork of hok’taur, Tau’ri and Jaffa were able to quickly finish the required work.

“Daniel Jackson, I am sending the jaffa to reconnect the weapons prepare to activate the weapons on my command.”

“All right go.” The man said, as he settled himself in front of one of the main computers. Teal’c strode out followed by the jaffa. Daniel waited while the group began reconnecting the damaged weapons back up. He turned and saw that Willow and Oz had finally stopped ignoring each other and were now actually looking at each other. He watched them while pretending to focus on the computer screen, he just hoped nothing bad happened.

“Oz, hey, hi.” The witch greeted uncertainly as she was now face to face with her ex.

“Willow.” The werewolf returned to the one person that his wolf had ever recognized as his mate. That was the problem with being a werewolf, while humans could change in their feelings wolves mated for life and only ever even considered mating again after their chosen mate was dead even so they rarely did.

“So, how you been? You kind of left in a hurry last time.”

“Good.” Oz waited a few minutes adjusting some of the controls before he asked the question that he needed to know about particularly since the scent on Willow wasn’t one he was familiar with. “Tara?” He asked her with interest.

Willow looked sadly beyond her terminal, and into something that she couldn’t really see. “Dead.” She returned to him.

The werewolf’s sad eyes turned to his love. “Sorry.” He said, grabbing her hand up into his and just holding onto it comforting her the best he could.

Willow smiled, this was the Oz she remembered complete with comforting presence and one word answers and questions. One of the longest conversations that she could remember having with him had been about whether or not to make out in his van while Cordelia and Xander were stealing the rocket launcher.

“So why did you come back?”

“They asked. Anyways, Buffy’s alpha.” Oz said as if that explained it all.

Willow’s eyebrows rose at that comment, she didn’t think that Oz went that far into the whole wolf mentality thing. Then again it had been a long time since she saw him, and she hadn’t gotten to ask all the questions that gaining control of the wolf meant. She remembered that there had been a bit of wildness to him that he had just kept hidden last time. She also felt a bit of shame that Oz still felt a sense of loyalty to her best friend, when she was still unsure about following her. She knew she had to follow the blond Slayer, but she couldn’t help but wonder what disaster her old friend would bring on them next. Yet here was Oz, as loyal as well a dog.

“Why?” Oz questioned and despite the years apart Willow understood exactly what it was that he was asking.

“We were losing people, and Buffy wanted to go back where we had just lost a lot of people, she was getting all controlly and didn’t even ask us anymore just doing stuff. And hey, we’re the original scoobies, she should have at least talked with us you know?” Willow then began pouting toward the werewolf hoping he would see things her way.

“She’s alpha.” Oz explained to her, as if that was good enough answer for him. The werewolf merely blinked at the pout on her face not letting any other emotion show as he explained it to her. “You had a choice.”

“Choice, what choice? Buffy so was not giving us a choice.” She argued back at him.

“Go or stay.” The werewolf returned.

“Oh yeah, that choice.” Willow said softly as she squirmed under his disappointed gaze, she hadn’t felt like this in front of a guy since Oz had caught her kissing Xander in Spike’s factory lair. She was so wishing for Xander, Giles and Dawn right about now, or maybe even Kennedy. Yeah her girlfriend would be good to have right about now, even if she did provoke her ex-boyfriend into changing and clawing her up.

“You were hurting.” The musician noted.

“Well yeah, one thing after another just kept happening, so I guess we all just kind of lost it.”

“Don’t let it control you.” Oz told her before he turned back to his work.

“Easy for you to say, your all Mr. Calm except for when you’re not, cause then you go all furry and grry and angry. Then there’s the fact that you are like the whole zen master who’s just there, I mean why is it that you get to be the one with all the self control. What?” She asked as she saw a small smile tugging at his lips.

“You’re still cute when you babble.” He noted.

“Oh yeah, still babble girl, uh huh, that’s like a part of the whole Willow package kind of like my red hair.”

“Forgive yourself first.” The werewolf said stopping her new babble.

“But it’s so hard, I mean I know we didn’t do things right and that we were all acting a bit weird lately.”

“Fight each other later. Fight the First now”

“But.”

“War is now.”

“But.”

“Indeed, your former companion is correct Miss. Rosenberg, while it is true that you acted somewhat foolishly, now is not the time for such things. You acted rashly, and nearly paid for it, now you have a chance to prove that you are worthy of fighting alongside the Slayer. To do that though you must not be stuck with your thoughts of failure, but rather you need to focus on the tasks that lie ahead of you now.”

Daniel looked up at the Jaffa in surprise he had been so engrossed in the conversation that he hadn’t even heard the big man come into the room. He had rarely met people like Oz who seemed to communicate with their soul instead of any other real language it was a thing of beauty to observe.

“All right then, I’ll do it for the team.” The girl said glumly, she knew she had a lot of things to do and even a lot more thinking to make right some of the pain that she had dealt Buffy if she was going to repair their seven odd years worth of friendship that they had.

Teal’c nodded at the Tau’ri mystic before turning to his teammate. “Activate the weapons Daniel Jackson.” He ordered the man who nodded and typed in the required command codes required. They all strained their ears as they heard the soft thumping sound of the Goa’uld energy weapons as they began blasting into the ranks of the enemy inferi.

“For Master Bra’tac.” The Jaffa said solemnly.

“Why for him?” Willow asked, “He and that Moody guy are alive, or is this cause they won’t be much longer?”

“What do you speak of mystic?” Teal’c said rounding on the young woman in worry.

“What the dear lady means is that the man whom you spoke of is currently using hit and run attacks with one of the wizards against the inferi.” The Beast said from his seat.

“Indeed,” Teal’c said worriedly wondering if it would be by their own cannons that Master Bra’tac would die by or the monsters.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Sir, I think we just got a miracle.”

“Why what happened?”

“The building across from us just opened fire on the zombies sir, they’re not really weakening them a whole lot but the cannons that are being used are catching them on fire.”

“Great how long an estimate do we have on those firewalls?”

Carter grimaced as she huddled over with the red haired wizard that had created the wall. She turned back to her CO with a grim look. “We have approximately five minutes until the wall fails if they keep slamming into us like this sir, then the whole thing will fail all at once.

“What about the guys on the other side? They seem to be putting some holes into them.”

“Unfortunately sir the damage was already done by the time the weapons started, if they don’t keep coming at us like they have been then the wall will just fall apart over a few minutes instead of just vanishing all at once.”

“Damn it. Jack growled as he slammed his fist into a wall. “How are we supposed to stop them then Carter? There’s still a ton of those things out there. He waved his uninjured hand to indicate all of the resurrected bodies.

“I’m not sure sir, but we could have our people lay land mines and such on the edge of the fire circle.” Sam suggested racking her brain for any ideas that might slow this army down.

“Not enough time Carter we need something better than that.”

“Working on it sir.”

Jack nodded and looked into the eyes of Samantha Finn who merely shook her head as well, neither of them had a plan that would get them out of this one. He turned back to his own friend, and his tired eyes locked with Samantha Carter’s own fear laced eyes, her mind was running over every possible scenario that might give them some sort of victory but the incredible mind of Samantha Carter was drawing a blank on how to stop them from all dying. The two soldiers turned back to watch the creatures as they battered the firewall, standing as close to each other as they could.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The inferi turned their attention away from the fire-protected building and turned to the unprotected building that was firing its energy blasts at them. Their master ordered them to destroy this nuisance before returning to the other building. They advanced on the building moving slowly the creatures began their attack the cannons blazed at the inferi joined by spell fire weapons and mutant strikes that were slowing them down. A hail of ice splinters flew through one group going through the various creatures with a mighty surge sometimes the collective blast were enough to knock a limb off. Thunder bolts and cosmic blasts joined the attack making small gaps and Jaffa weapons blew into the inferi. Two Jaffa stood outside the doors and blew through one after another and died guarding the main entrance.

Xavier looked out the window of the building and sighed as he scanned the minds of all of the people, and felt the helplessness that they all felt as one defense as after another failed soon the last line of defense would fail and they would be forced to die because they had failed in their task to protect the world he had one wild card left he hoped that it was enough. ‘Now old friend.’ He telepathically sent, hoping that this would be enough, as he had no other cards to play after this gambit.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The firewall finally spluttered and died and Jack looked on as the creatures attention was now split between the bases with moans and groans both building were soon under assault. Jack fired at the head of one that was close to him, while he threw an AN-M14 TH3 into the monsters with his other hand, his jaw dropped at the explosion this one made. What had they put into that one? He watched in awe as the flames from that one grenade grew bigger and bigger. “Hit the deck!” He yelled, before tackling Carter, the two were face to face and Jack closed his eyes as flames roared over his head. He heard a couple of screams as some people were not quiet fast enough, and were caught in the blast of fire, he turned his head upward and saw that the flames were somehow just hovering about at waist height burning all of the inferi nearby, the flames retracted and swirled, and soon a large fire tunnel formed and connected the two buildings.

“Carter what’s going on.” He asked his second in command, as he tried to make some type of sense out of what it was that he was seeing.

“Not sure sir,” she said, as he rolled off of her and stood to look in awe as the tunnel burned any of the monsters that got near it.

Jack nodded, he wasn’t sure what was going on, but he sure wasn’t going to look a gift horse like this in the mouth. “Teal’c old buddy, set those weapons on a timer to start back up then get out of there the way is clear!”

“Understood O’Neill.” The Jaffa returned.

Jack waited and watched as all sorts of people made a run to their side of the tunnel it looked like everyone had regrouped there, and was now regrouping here with them. Teal’c led the last remains of the Jaffa as they rushed away from the building. Jack frowned when he saw that he was only leading two Jaffa, he wondered what had happened to the others.

“We are all here O’Neill, now what?”

“Now we get everyone inside to safety and prepare for the next round of zombies.”

“That will not be necessary.” An arrogant and bemused voice said from above them. Everyone turned and looked up to see a man with white hair, clear blue eyes and with a helmet and cape standing on a flat circular piece of metal that was hovering thirty feet in the air, near him stood five other figures on similar piece of metal about ten feet back. Two of them had two familiar forms, as Moody and Bra’tac were looking the worst for wear.

“Charles it’s good to see you again.” The man said in greeting nodding to the figure below him.

“And you Eric.” Xavier returned with a tired smile. “I am so glad that you got my message and came.”

“I figured I could do it for old times’ sake. Besides I did owe you for nearly killing you and stealing the helicopter old friend.” The man said, as he looked down at the various people, he sneered at the human as their hands tightened on their weapons while he looked curiously at the witches and wizards with interest and more bemusement he also kept a careful eye on Cyclops as his visor flashed a brighter red with barely suppressed anger. “But now is not the time for this, Pyro finish those abominations off.” He commanded to one of the figures that was behind him.

“Yes sir,” one of the figures said, and snapped his fingers and they all watched in amazement as the fire tunnel exploded outward and caught any of the remaining inferi in the fire. The entire street was engulfed in flame, yet the assembled heroes didn’t even need to move since the flames stayed away from them.

“That was very well done John.” Xavier said from his seat, “It appears that your control has gotten even better than it was since the last time I tested you.”

“Yes Pyro, that was excellent work.” Magneto complimented the teen.

“Thank you.” Pyro said nodding toward his new mentor while ignoring the old one’s words.

Magneto then sent all of his people down to the ground on their metallic disks till it was only him that hovered above everyone else. “Well, shall we go in?” He asked the assembled people with a smile.

“If you will wait a moment, the last members of my team are coming in right now.” Xavier said pointing toward the sky.

Magneto followed the finger and his eyes widened slightly as he saw a familiar looking girl with brown and white hair flying through the air and carrying a teammate in either hand. The girl stopped in front of Magneto glaring at him angrily she dropped her two friends and pulled her fist back.

“Rogue no!” Xavier barked out, stopping the girl from decking the Master of Magnetism.”

“Oh it’s all right Charles, as long as she’s wearing her gloves I don’t mind if she tries to hit me.” Magneto said with a smirk as he opened his arms and smirked at the girl. “Come on Rogue, take your best shot.” Magneto merely hovered in front of the girl waiting for her to make the first move. A move that he doubted that the girl would dare to make now that Xavier had told her not to. He also had a magnetic shield up just on the off chance that she was following after Wolverine’s thoughts. Rogue grinned viciously and slammed her fist at him. Magneto’s superior smirk changed to surprise, as Rogue’s fist slammed into his magnetic shield, and sent him flying off the metal disk and into the bushes.

Wolverine chuckled as he knelt down beside Magneto. “Girl’s got a hell of a right hook now Mags, you might want to be more careful when ya piss her off.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that next time.” Magneto said, as he pushed himself back up. He allowed the last magnetic disk to fall carelessly to the ground “Well, shall we go in now?” He questioned again.

“Of course, come on in Eric.” Xavier said motioning for his friend to come with him.

“Thank you Charles,” with a sweep of his cape Magneto led his mutant followers in, though he did stop to look at Rogue who was standing there with a cocky smirk on her face. “You have so much potential my dear, it’s a shame you waste it with them.”

“Better them than you.” She snapped, before she stalked away from him and went to stand next to a dark haired boy that had just appeared it seemed.

Magneto and Mystique chuckled at the defiance as they entered the building. Jack looked at Daniel and Teal’c . “Well folks there goes the neighborhood.” Several people chuckled at this but didn’t argue.