dragonyphoenix

Title: Turok-Han
Fandom: BtVS
Prompt: 467 - Snowflake(s)
Rating: PG
Summary: Another chapter for Shanshu
Word Count: 1255
Note: After I posted the last chapter, I was asked how the Turok-Han could be out in daylight. Ooops. Going back and fixing.
Note: Quark. I loved this for the short time it was on.
Note: Sue Ellen's yell
Note: The Dukes of Hazzard

First an ancient punk rocker appeared out of nowhere and placed one of those 'this is a sign of evil' flowers on the altar, and then Dawn cut herself and let the blood drip into the mouth of that selfsame flower. This could only lead to badness. Combining blood and any kind of mouth was a bad idea at the mouth of Hell.

And there it was. Sunny skies gave way to clouds in the blink of an eye. “Oh, come on,” Xander said as the first flake hit him. “The last time we had snowflakes, Angel's life was saved.”

“Unlife,” Dawn piped in.

“Whatever.”

“And what's wrong with saving Angel?” Xander had to admire how Buffy avoided the whole life vs. unlife wording in her response.

“One, I don't like him. Two, he's not here so we don't need snow to save him. Three, we just opened a Hellmouth. Anything that reduces the amount of sunshine? Bad.”

As if to prove his point, Maria shouted from the edge of the crater. “Incoming.”

Only the little strawberry-blonde, some friend of a friend of Spike's as far as Xander could tell, didn't run for the edge of the crater.”You'd think,” Xander said, “that some of us would have learned to run from danger by now.”

“What are they?” That came from Spike's friend, Millay, who had out-geeked Andrew by correctly naming plant-guy in some short-lived bit of fluff called Quark. Okay, and she was looking a tad green around the gills.

Xander glanced down into the crater. “Oh, shit. Turok-Han.” Fifty of them, possibly more than.

“This is it.” And there it was, what he loved Buffy for. She stepped in and got the job done. “Dawn, Xan, Wes, you three get the civilians into a van and get out of here.”

Spike's friend Morgan was already trekking for the truck as fast as his little shit-eater boots could carry him.

“What?” Xander winced but it was too late to cover his ears. They'd already been damaged by Dawn's high-pitched shriek. “I'm not leaving. You need me here to scan for Spike.”

“Which you can't do if you're dead. Go.”

“No.”

Time to intervene before Buffy decided to kill her sister rather than the super-vamps. “Dawnie, how about we at least head toward the vans? Just to give the Slayers room to work.”

As one of the Turok-Han hissed, Dawn relented. “Okay, but just as far as the vans.”

“Yee haw!” Okay, and it seemed Spike's friend Sue Ellen, for all that her manicure would have left Cordelia green with envy, was a Duke's of Hazzard fan.

“Come on,” Xander shouted.

“You go on, boys,” she called back with a grin. “I'm in this fight.”

“You know how to kill these things?” Buffy asked.

“I could use a few tips.”

Buffy tossed over a stake. “Aim for the heart.”

Dawn turned to the old guy in the Agnostic Front t-shirt. “Okay, Mr. Webb. You should come with us.”

“Oh, no way, man. I'm good.” As he threw a ninja star – and how come Xander never got to throw ninja stars? – a Turok-Han went up in dust. The star was back in his hand or maybe one just like it. “Blessed by the spirit guides,” Webb explained. With a growl, the all Turok-Han charged. “Oh, sorry ma'am. I didn't mean to rile them up so soon.”

“We had to fight them sooner or later,” Buffy shouted back.

Xander grabbed Millay by the arm. “You're coming with us at least.”

She took one look at the violence and ran the other way. Good girl. Not only cute and geeky, but also smart.

Turok-Han crested the edge of the crater like a dark wave of death. And, okay, he'd been hanging with Andrew far too often it that was the first metaphor his brain came up with.

Sue Ellen leaped into the fray with a yell that sounded rather bird-like, not chirpy but more in the cry of an eagle or hawk range. She stabbed for the heart but before she'd made contact the Turok-Han had lashed out, tossing her twenty feet back. Xander ran forward, thinking he'd have to drag her to the van, but she got up to her feet again with stake still in hand. And, okay, note to self, possible unidentified Slayer. Have that checked out, assuming they lived.

Webb seemed to be holding his own, taking out the demons at a fairly good clip, but it looked like demons had picked up on that. “Look out,” Xander shouted as five of the Turok-Han charged Webb. Before the guy could get another throw in, he'd vanished under all that black, but then two of the Turok-Han puffed to dust, one after the other, and Webb was standing about ten feet from where the demons had rushed him. Oh, yeah, Webb had appeared out of nowhere earlier. Apparently he had some kind of teleportation deal going on.

The rest of the Slayers were tossing the Scythe between them, kicking ass but it wasn't enough. The Turok-Han were advancing. When Patti went for one armed only with her stake, its claws reached around her and twisted. Shit, she was down.

And Izzy was in trouble. As one of the Turok-Han had advanced, she'd fallen. What the hell? Had she twisted her ankle in the sand? She raised her stake defiantly but there was no way … moving so fast Xander couldn't tell where she'd come from, Yakone grabbed the demon from behind, yanking him back as Izzy's sweeping kick knocked his legs out from under him. As the Turok-Han hit the ground, Maria fell on him with her stake. “Yes!” And Xander didn't care what anyone might say, jumping up and down and squealing with Dawn was in no way undignified or unmanly.

“Does anyone else think those three have some sort of a Hive Mind thing going on?”

“What? No, Slayer's are just …” As Xander turned, he saw what Millay meant. The three Slayers – Izzy, Yakone, and Maria – were fighting as a unit Nobody, not even Slayers, worked that well together. It looked like their minds were working as one. “Giles definitely needs to give Andrew a bonus for coming up with this.”

“How are they doing that?” Wes seemed as dumbfounded as Xander felt. Well, good, at least he wasn't the only one caught off guard.

“Some training Andrew came up with.” Xander explained as much as he could, which wasn't much now that he thought of it. If he was going to be in charge in LA, he'd have to keep better track of what Andrew got up to.

“Oooh, Twister?” Dawn asked. “I'd heard it had done some kind of mind mergey thing on them. Looks cooler than I'd imagined.”

“At least we won't have to flee for our lives.” And Wes was right. The three-for-the-price-of-one-Slayer had turned the tide of battle. Between them, the Scythe, and that Webb guy, the Turok-Han didn't stand a chance.

“Okay,” Buffy called out after the last Turok-Han had been dusted. “Let's get this search over and done with.”

“Before anything else weird happens,” Millay muttered.

Xander grabbed Millay by both arms. “No. What were you thinking? You've just jinxed us.”

She pulled out of his grip. “Jinxes don't exist.”

“After what you just saw,” Dawn said, “do you really want to say anything can't exist?”

Millay scanned the battlefield. “I don't know what I …” Xander followed her gaze. She was staring at the dead Slayer. “… saw.”