Chapter 8: Good Guys gone bad - Part 1

[Black Eye Guy]

As one team was sent to Nepal to look into a possible Ansara connection, a Second left the Brushfire camp heading to New York, they made a pit stop in LA to collect some help and then headed onto New York.

They had been set up in a hotel across the street from the Museum, they had the entire top floor to themselves with interlocking rooms, so they could gather together and sleep apart with no hassle. As this mission wasn't above board they couldn't stay in the local slayer sanctuary, with out having to answer why they were there.

[Connor]

::Connor paced back and back and forth across the hotel room he had claimed as his own. His suitcase lay open on the bed, his clothes, which he'd packed in a hurry, in disarray round the room. He couldn't focus enough to unpack properly.

::His head had been spinning since the team, conisisting of Gwen, Amy, Gunn and Illyria, had shown up at his dorm room and told him they'd wanted him to be a part of their mission. Well, Gwen had told him she'd wanted him to be a part of her mission. He still wasn't sure how the others felt.

::Connor sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He thought he'd escaped the whole superhero deal. After that last major thing in the alley, and the following attack by that vamp chick, he'd thought he wasn't needed anymore, and quickly returned to Stanford, returning to his classes and his normal life.

::But now, here he was, back in the middle of the fight. He couldn't honestlty say why he'd agreed to come on the mission, but something inside him told him it was probably the fact that Gwen had made them travel hundreds of miles in the wrong direction just to ask him to join in.

::He didn't even know what the mission was, or why they were holed up in this fancy hotel, the entire top floor closed off just for them. But he had a sneaking suspecion that it wasn't exactly above board, from the way Gunn and Gwen were always whispering.::

That's cool, I guess. Just hope I don't land my ass in jail. Bet I could bust out, though. Like Faith did that one time.

::Connor looked around the empty hotel room and sighed. Everyone else had something to do, and he was left alone, making him once again question why he was here.

::Crossing the room, he knocked on the door that connected his hotel room to the one on the other side.

::Without waiting for an answer, Connor opened the door and stuck his head inside.::

"Hey, Gunn. Can I talk to you for a second?"

[sk8rj04]

::Gunn lay on his bed, thinking.

::Though, it was more just random thoughts spilling into his head. He went from thinking about being back in LA for a short time again to the events leading up to his initial leaving of LA to the final battle in the alley to Illyria to Fred to Fred's death and then to his inner mission.

::For the longest time, Gunn couldn't figure out why he still fought the forces of darkness with people he barely knew. He just couldn't put a finger on the reason he was there. Why keep at it when nearly everything that Gunn had once held dear to him had been stripped away as if they were nothing? Why fight evil if it was just going to end up taking over his life?

::But it was that moment, sitting there thinking to himself, that he realized the answer to that question. He had caused so much pain, for himself and others, in his pursuit for more knowledge--to matter at Wolfram & Hart--that he was led astray from his friends. He couldn't bear to face them. His reason for fighting was to make amends to those actions. He couldn't reverse the effects of the choices he made. But he could work toward making the world a better place. The way Fred would have wanted it to be..

::Gunn heard a knock at his door. He looked at it and shrugged, unmoving. He didn't feel like getting up to the door. However, he decided it beat sitting there wallowing in the miseries of the past, and started off the bed.

::Before he reached the door, Connor's head popped in and asked Gunn a question.::

Connor: "Uh, yeh. Sure."

::He gestured to come in.::

Connor: "What's up?"

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

Well, look at that. I'm back to being bored again.

:: They'd now moved to New York, after a quick pit stop in L.A., and the team had not actually started anything mission-related yet. They were more in the brief "settling in" phase of the trip. At least Amy had a hotel room all to herself, albeit an adjoined hotel room, in which she could do anything she wanted. ...Too bad she had nothing to do. ::

:: Connor was on the mission now, but she still didn't really know him that well. The same went for Gunn and Illyria. She knew Gwen, but she was not particularly inclined to spend any time with her. She suddenly regretted not being placed in the other group. They'd left first, so they might even be on the "mission" part of their mission already. Plus, Gwen wasn't leading it. ::

:: She decided to explore her hotel room a bit. There was a fully stocked mini-fridge in one corner of the room. Everything in it was probably expensive, but it would likely be charged to the Slayer HQ, so she checked it out. If they could afford the entire floor of a hotel, they could afford the mini-fridge snacks. She took out a small can of macadamia nuts and popped one into her mouth. She also noted the small TV, which she turned on. She ate some more nuts as she absently flipped the channels. Finding nothing on, she then put the nuts down on the small end table by the bed, and decided to leave the room. She entered the hallway with no real destination in mind. ::

In a fancy hotel like this, there must be something to do.

[Lyri]

::Gwen could hear someone walking about in the room next to hers and absently wondered who'd picked that room. She knew that Connor was further down the hall, the opposite end to her, but with three rooms in between, she realy had no idea.

:: Deciding to ignore the restless neighbor for the minute, Gwen turned back to the laptop she had set up on the desk of her room, and sighed as she looked at the schematics Willow had somehow gotten her magic-y little fingers on. The building they were breaking into had the highest levels of security she had ever seen. The entire top floor, where the object of their desire lay, was completely covered in laser activated alarms, and Gwen assumed that they weren;t just gonna be able to gain access. She could manipulate the lasers well enough to get past herself, but with four people in tow, it was gonna be a tough gig.

::She clicked off the laptop and leaned back in her chair. The details on the computer could only tell her so much, and nothing about what kind of muscle this building hired.

::They were gonna need to pay this building a visit in the cold light of day...before the nighttime visit was even thought about.::

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

:: After looking around the top floor of the hotel, Amy realized that though there were a few things to do, she didn't particularly want to do any of those things. Maybe it was time to start the mission by now. She sighed, figuring the best way to find out would be to ask Miss Mission Head herself, Gwen. She wasn't positive about which room Gwen was in, since she hadn't been paying attention to the room assignments everyone else had gotten. ::

:: She decided she'd just quickly pop into each room until she found the one she was looking for. It gave her something to do anyway, and might end with finally getting to do the mission. Instinctively without knocking, Amy turned the doorknob of the room that was closest to where she was standing. Surprised to find it actually open, she pushed the door the rest of the way and peered inside. It was either Gunn's room or Connor's room; she wasn't sure because they were both in there. They seemed to be having a conversation, so she defensively held up her hands as an apology for her interruption. ::

Gunn and Connor: "Hey. Sorry, guys. Wrong room. Continue...whatever it is you were doing here."

:: She closed the door and left them in peace. The second she did, she realized how stupid she was not to ask which room was Gwen's, but she shrugged it off. They were in the middle of something anyway. Her room was next to Gunn-slash-Connor's room, so she skipped over that and decided to check the room next to her's. Unsure if this room would be unlocked, she sighed and knocked twice on the door, waiting as patiently as she could for someone to come open it. ::

[Connor]

::Connor closed the door behind him and helped himself to the desk chair. He stared at Gunn. Now that he was here, he didn't know what to say. He and Gunn had never been that close.::

Probably has a lot to do with the whole me being a ass thing. Wonder if he remembers everything?

::Shaking off his enternal ramblings, Connor took a deep breath."

Gunn: "What are we doing here, man? This whole mission thing, what is it? No one's talking about the details, and I'm pretty sure that means it's not exactly on the level. I'm not saying I don't want to be part of it, I just wish everyone would stop treating me like a kid and tell me what's going on."

::The door to Gunn's room open, and Amy's head popped into the room. She made an excuse about making a mistake and vanished again.

::Connor turned back to Gunn.::

Gunn: "So, are you gonna be straight with me, or do I have to tell my dad you're all being mean to me."

::Connor laughed.::

[Lyri]

::Gwen got up from her chair and made her way across the room to the closet. Pulling out some fresh clothes, she started to pull her hair into a bun before heading for the bathroom.

::There was a knock on the door of her room.

::Groaning loudly, Gwen dropped her things on the bed and cross the room and pulled open the door.

::Amy stood in the hallway.

::Gwen rolled her eyes.::

"What do you want?"

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

Gwen: "To have a pajama party. Sound like fun?"

:: Amy remarked with snide sarcasm in response to Gwen's eye-rolling. Amy walked into the room, not caring that Gwen hadn't invited her, and examined the way Gwen had set it up. It wasn't much, obviously, as their stay would only be temporary, but Amy believed that the way a person set up their room, even a temporary one, could say a lot about that person. She spun back around to face Gwen, and casually leaned back against one of the tables in the hotel room. ::

Gwen: "In all seriousness, I'm here to find out about the mission. When's it happening, exactly? Any prepping need to be done? Big Scooby pow-wow?"

:: She then realized that Gwen would likely be more familiar with Team Angel (if they had some sort of fun little nickname, she didn't know it) than the Scoobies. After all, to Amy's understanding, that was where she transferred over from. And heck, even Amy wasn't that familiar with all the Scoobies that well. She added,

Gwen: "You know, group meeting to go over the specs?"

[Lyri]

::Gwen frowned.::

Amy: "Scooby? You wanna watch cartoons now?"

::Shaking her head, she walked back to the laptop and booted it up.::

Amy: "Well, since you're here, you could probably help me with something."

::She turned the computer to show Amy the building Willow's urn was housed in.::

"I don't know what you know about the mission, but in this building is a thing we need. And to get said thing, we're gonna have to break in. But before we do that, I wanna get a look at the place in the daylight, and since all my best breaking and entering is done at night, I was hoping you'd be able to wave your wand and get us in. This place is high end security, and when I say high end, I mean REALLY high end. This guy, the owner person, has laser triggered alarms, round the clock CCTV, demonic body guards, and probably more than a few spells protecting the place that I couldn't even begin to figure out. What I want, is just to get inside, scope the place out and get out in one piece. Think you can come up with something that'll keep us off their radar for a bit?"

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

:: Amy couldn't help but smirk at Gwen's Scooby comment. While some might take it as an insult, which she knew was the way it was intended, she found it humorous how Gwen couldn't understand what she was saying. She looked at Gwen's computer, and listened to what Gwen wanted her to do. ::

Gwen: "Get you in? No problem. I could do that with both hands tied behind my back. Keep us off the radar? Little trickier. I'd need to know more specifics about what kind of 'radar' you want me to keep us off of exactly. Is the fancy magic-mojo he's packing gonna detect us, or is what you want me to deal with more the 'we step in the wrong spot and alarms start blaring' kind of radar? Despite the daylight hour, that second one seems more your department."

:: Amy couldn't help but be a little surprised. Apparently, when it came down to the mission, she and Gwen could be...well, civil to each other. She had to admit, she kind of missed the fighting. There are few highs like watching someone struggle to one-up you...especially when they can't. But honestly, what good would they be to the mission if some demon came along and they started fighting each other? Maybe, for now, it was time to suck up any anger she had. ::

Saving it for later would make it all the stronger, anyway.

[Lyri]

::Gwen watched the strange look pass over Amy's face, but shrugged it off. Whatever the witch was going through now would have to wait until they got back to headquaters, their mission completed. Right now they were team mates, and team mates required team work.::

Amy: "I can take care of the alarms, the cameras and the lasers, at least, enough for me to see how they work and figure something else out for the actual breaking and entering. It's the spells that I'm worried about. According to Willow's intel, there is definite magic being used in the building, we just have no idea what it is or what it does. The demons we can handle, we've got enough muscle now that Connor's on board, but the magic is your department, Amy. Can you cover all the basics to stop us getting detected by the Harry Potter types?"

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

:: Amy felt glad that she and Gwen seemed to be on the same page about working together...for now. She pondered the problem Gwen presented to her. She was a bit worried because she really wasn't positive about how to solve it with so few details. However, it seemed they couldn't get any more, and even though she and Gwen weren't in fighting stances at the moment, she definitely did not want to come off as the amateur that she most certainly was not. Magic wasn't a problem for her; it was the whole thieving thing that made it all so tricky. She decided to venture the only suggestion she could come up with. ::

Gwen: "Well, I've never exactly done anything...like this before. That's not hard to guess. But, I'm thinking maybe I could put some sort of force field around the room you want to explore. Maybe just to block out any forms of magical detection that they have. I've never tried it, so I'm not gonna guarantee it will work, but I'd say that with the power I've got behind me, we've got a pretty good shot."

:: It seemed like a workable plan to Amy. With all normal security blocked by Gwen, no camera would pick them up, no alarms would go off, etc. and so forth. So really, as Gwen explained, magic radar was the only way they would be noticed. If she could indeed manage some sort of "force field" that would block out the detection of anything but normalcy in the room, they could get in and out with no trouble. She smiled in reflection of her superior wicca skills. ::

They almost make it too easy.

[Lyri]

::Gwen nodded. It sounded like a reasonable plan to her. She wasn't an expert on magic, so she didn't feel like she could argue.::

Amy: "Okay, but the room I wanna 'explore' is on the top floor. Do you think there'll be any magic between the front door and that room?"

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

:: Amy knew she and Gwen were trying to remain on good terms right now, but she couldn't help but respond with just a bit of sarcasm after Gwen's last comment. ::

Gwen: "Well, let's think about that, shall we? If I'm just gonna snap my fingers, and poof, we're in the room, why does it even matter?"

:: Amy took a breath to calm her building anger. ::

Focus on the mission. Get the mission done. Mission first, anger later.

:: She decided it was a good idea to add something else to her first response, to try to get both Gwen and herself away from The Hatred Zone and back on the mission track. ::

Gwen: "Well, we seem set then. I'm on top of the magic, and you've got all the...techie stuff. So, when do we leave?"

[Lyri]

::Gwen folded her arms across her chest. She didn't like the tone in Amy's voice, it grated.::

She talks to me like I'm a child. I already proved to her that I could hold my own against her. It ain't my fault I don't know much about her powers.

::Gwen pulled herself up to her full height and glared at Amy.::

"Alright, Sabrina. If you think this is going to be so easy, why don't we just do the lift now? It'd save a hell of a lot of time, and we can all get back to headquaters. And we can let Connor get back to his normal life."

::It made Gwen feel bad to know that she had pulled Connor back into all of the weird stuff her world now consisted of. He'd left them a while ago, escaped back to his college life. And now here he was. Back in the middle of it.

::Gwen shook away the negative thoughts and smiled.::

"How about we leave in thirty minutes?"

[Angels baby101]

::Illyria paced her room... its always a room never any action just always stuck in a room with people she didn't exactly like. Never any action...::

Always sitting... How these humans survive is amazing to me.

::she thought bored with being locked up in a box. She needed to fight something... or to do something that involved movement. Illyria picked up the remote to the t.v something she came to like in this world... She loved to watch the people in the small box fight... amazed at how they got stuck in there... Of course Wesley explained it to her... she was still confused at the concept but she still enjoyed it. Turning the t.v on and flipping the channel quickly stopping when she seen something interesting to her... One human a bulkier one just threw a smaller one into a brick wall... Illyria smiled as she watched... looking around she was occupied but still hoped to do something more entertaining to her soon.::

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

Gwen: "Sounds good to me."

:: At the moment, Amy didn't care that Gwen had returned to being rude to her. If Gwen's feelings were anything like Amy's, it had probably been bubbling under the surface this whole time anyway. All she cared about right now, though, was that they were finally getting into some action! ...Although part of her did wonder why she and Gwen just did all this planning to scope out the place beforehand when they could simply go steal the thing in half an hour, sans pre-theft scope. ::

:: Amy was not quite sure what to do now. She could keep standing here in Gwen's room, doing nothing, or go back to her room and do nothing for a half hour. Decisions, decisions she thought sarcastically. In her mind, continuing to stand here certainly seemed more awkward and less appealing. However, much as she hated to admit it every time, Gwen was the leader of their little mission, and she figured Gwen should be calling all the shots. If she wanted the gang to ever give her any form of respect, she had to show some in turn, even where Gwen was concerned. ...But just a little bit. Suddenly, a thought hit her. She realized that no one else yet knew about this plan; it gave her an idea of something she could do for at least part of the next half hour. ::

Gwen: "You want me to go clue everyone in on the plan?"

[Lyri]

::Gwen blinked slowly, repeated the witches words in her head.:

Amy's volunteering to do something? Gee, and here was me thinking I was being the bigger person.

::Gwen nodded.::

"Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great."

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

"Okay. Guess I'll get on that then."

:: Amy registered that Gwen was surprised, but decided that finding out why was not something worth dwelling on. With a vague gesture, which slightly resembled a wave good-bye, though it did not look like much of one, Amy left Gwen's room. The closest room to her from there was Connor-Slash-Gunn's (she still was not sure quite who's it was), which she had been in before. She figured it made the most sense to start there, being that it was nearest to her, and that unless one of them had left, both Connor and Gunn were in there. She'd get to Illyria next. ::

:: She walked over to said room, trying to decide whether to just barge in as she had before, or knock as she had done with Gwen. She decided a little mixture was the best choice. She hoped they would not be too annoyed that she was interrupting, yet again, but she felt it was important that they were ready to leave, or getting to the mission might take even longer. She knocked on the door firmly, then turned the knob to the door she knew was open and poked her head inside. ::

Connor and Gunn: "Hey, guys? There's been a mission update."

[Angels baby101]

:: Illyria now bored with watching the tiny people in the t.v quickly got up to shut off the square box. She looked once more around the room before deciding she was tired of being cooped up she wanted to do something.. making her way toward the door she listened for sounds of other people. Turning her head to the left she heard sounds of a voice in a room down the hall. Closing the door behind her she made her way to the room... not polite enough to knock she openned the door without hesitation.::

"When do we leave?"

:: She didn't need to say alot... nor did she want to. She just said what she thought without and remorse for what was being said. She didn't have time to waste on all these things that she didn't really care for, Or did she? Why else was she here... was it possible that she felt for these worthless humans? maybe she had been in this world for to long.. it infected her like an oozing sore... bubbling with disease.::

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

:: As Amy stood, waiting for Gunn or Connor to answer her, Illyria suddenly burst into the room, asking when they were leaving. ::

Huh. So that's what it's like to be on the other end of someone bursting into a room.

Illyria: "Actually, I was about to come tell you after I told these guys. According to our oh-so-mighty mission leader, Gwen, we're leaving in half an hour. If you need to do any sort of preparing, do it now."

:: She figured Illyria was probably just as anxious to get out of this hotel and into the fray as she was. Actually, she was starting to think everyone shared these sentiments. From what she was able to understand, Connor was not that into being here in the first place, so he would probably be glad if it was over sooner rather than later. As for Gunn, Illyria, and herself (again, to the best of her understanding), they were all about the action. They just wanted to get out there and kick demon ass. Although, they probably leaned more toward the physical fighting than the magical combat that she preferred. Plus, this was more of a stealth mission, and less of a fighting one. Either way, it boiled down to one simple concept that she felt the three of them shared. Action good, idleness bad. ::

[Connor]

::Connor sighed as he looked up at the two women who had just burst into Gunn's room.::

Can Illyria still actually be called a woman?

::Gunn hadn't responded to his questions, and part of Connor wondered if he'd hit a sore spot.::

Wonder what happened to everyone after the spell to erase me kicked in?

::Turning to Amy, Connor gave her a curt nod.::

"Thanks for the update. Think I'll go see what our leader has planned. Excuse me."

::He brushed past Illyria and out into the hallway. He knew that everyone's rooms had inter-connecting doors, but somehow, the thought of walking through the room of a woman he didn't even know felt wrong. Never mind Illyria's. Connor tried not to think about what he might have found in there.

::He reached the end of the hall, where Gwen's room was situated, and knocked lightly on the door. Again, he walked in without waiting for an answer.::

Wonder if that has anythign to do with growing up in a hell dimension?

::Gwen was sitting at the desk, her head in her hands. A wave of sympathy swept through Connor. It was obvious she wasn't used to being the boss.::

Gwen: "Hey. Amy said we're heading out. Anything you'd like me to do?"

[Lyri]

::Gwen looked up at the sound of the young man's voice.::

"Connor," she said, trying for confident, unsure if she was hitting her mark. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, we're heading out. Amy's decided that she can use enough magic to shield us from whatever magical security devices they have installed in the building, and I can take care of the traditional security so we're going to do the lift now."

::She gave Angel's son a caring smile.::

"That way, we can let you get back to your regular life, and we can return to headquarters and see what our mighty leaders have planned for us next. I can't imagine Buffy and your dad letting us rest on our laurals for too long. Whatever this thing is that we're swiping, it has to be pretty important if their willing to go to these lengths to get it."

::Gwen rose from her chair and crossed to the floor length mirror in the corner of her room. She started to pull her long brown hair into a tight french braid.::

"Why don't you go relax for a while? We're not leaving straight awhile, so go do whatever it is you do to get ready for something like this."

::She watched through the mirror as Connor gave her a quick nod and left her room, closing the door behind him.

::She let her hair drop and she flopped onto the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, she took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart.

::She was used to things like this, breaking into impenatrable buildings. But she wasn't used to people tagging along. The last time someone had decided to join her on a little B and E, Gunn had found himself dead. Gwen could still hear the thud as Gunn hit the floor as he fell after her blast hit him square in the chest. Fred's scream still haunted her dreams.

::Gwen shook her head. Things weren't going to go down like that. Everyone knew what they were doing, they knew the risks. No one was going to die. They were going to do the job and get back to headquarters before dawn the next day. She would bet her life on it.

::Rising to her feet again, Gwen finished her hair, then crossed to the vanity case she had sitting on the dresser. Unzipping it, she pulled out a tube of lipstick and looked in the mirror as she applied the bright red colour to her lips.

::Everything was going to be fine.::

[Lyri]

::Gwen stood in front of the building and craned her neck, looking up, trying to see the top floor. Of course, it was impossible in her current position, standing at the front door of said building, but she tried nonetheless.

::She put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath.

::The mission was almost over, that was what she wanted, to get everyone back to their regulalry scheduled programming. So why was she feeling like her life was ending as well.::

'Cause going back to base camp means going back to being a lackey, one of Angel's groupies. Guess I got used to being in charge.

"Alright peeps, let's get this over with."

::She looked at Illyria and Gunn on her left, Amy and Connor on her right. Her eyes stayed with Amy. Gwen gave the witch a slight nod.::

"Spell-Girl. Do your thing."

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

:: Amy went over what she was supposed to do in her head, one last time. ::

Magical force field to prevent magic detection, quick zap straight into the room we need to be in. Got it.

:: She figured she'd need to put the force field up first, or they would be detected when she zapped them into the room. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes to focus and concentrate even more. She held her hands out in front of her as if she were literally shaping a force field. ::

"Defendo."

:: A large gust of wind blew past, seemingly out of nowhere, and whipped Amy's hair into her eyes. She ignored it and continued to concentrate on putting the force field into place. With a final touch, she clenched her fists, sealing the special magic-detection-block into position. A final blast streamed into her now open eyes, burning them slightly. The spell was complete; the wind died down. Satisfied that she had finished the first past of her job, she prepared for the second. ::

A six-person teleportation. Never exactly done that before, but no biggie.

:: She began chanting the same teleportation spell she had used to teleport herself and Gwen back to Brushfire Training Camp long before this mission had started, with some words altered to accomodate the modifications of course. Eyes once again closed, she began to feel the sudden shifting of her molecules, which no longer bothered her in the least since she was so used to it. She knew Gwen hadn't fared so well with it last time, and wondered how Ex-God, Muscle Man, and Wonder Kid would hold up. ::

:: When she opened her eyes again, she frowned. Her brow furrowed in confused frustration. This was not where she was aiming for at all. She looked around, and realized she was standing in the room next to the one that they were supposed to be in. But how could that be? She'd never...well, maybe not never, but rarely ever messed up a spell before. Was there something wrong with her? ::

How could this have happened?

:: She tried thinking on what she had done and said, trying to find where she could possibly have gone wrong. But, she did not have much time to do so. As it turned out, this room had something that the other did not...the demon guards. The ones that they had intended to go around completely by way of her spell. Before she could begin to ponder her potential mistakes, she took a hard uppercut to the jaw, as a large, scaly demon knocked her over. ::

[Demon_RPG]

The four demons stood side by side, without anything to do they just had to stand their doing nothing.

Suddenly the air in front of them blurred and then reformed with 6 strangers standing their looking confused. Taking a moment to let the odd sight sick in, they darted forward.

The First ran to the closest one and hit her in the face, knocking her to the ground. The second ran towards the younger man of the group, with a sword in hand he started swinging at the boy. The third ran towards Gwen and kicked out his leg, hitting her square in the chest and throwing her back into the wall of the room. The Last demon, ran over and tackled Illyria to the ground.

[Lyri]

::Gwen landed on the floor in a crumpled heap, the wind knocked out of her. She struggled to her feet as she watched the demonic guards go after her people like they hadn't seen fresh meat in months.

::Getting her feet under her once more, Gwen took in the layout of the room.::

"Next door?! We're next door?! AMY!"

::But she didn't have time to yell at the witch. Amy was on the ground, dazed and obviously injured. A large bruise forming on the side of her face.::

"I'm so NOT in the mood for tangling with the hired help."

::Gwen fired at the demon that was leering over the fallen Amy. The bad guy contorted in pain from the electricty that flowed through its body, but it stayed on it's feet. The only thing Gwen had managed to do was draw it's attention away from Amy.::

"Okay," she said, backing out to give herself some room. "Who was it I told I didn't usually enjoy the hand to hand?"

::There was no one to answer her. Connor had backed himself into a corner, the demon he was fighting swinging a sword above his head. Gunn was leap-frogging his opponent, landing solidly on his feet behind the demon. He lifted the axe he'd brought with him and brought it down in a hard stroke, cleaving the demon's skull in half. With his opponent taken out of the game, Gunn ran to help Illyria, who was only getting pissed that the demon wouldn't bow down to her greatness.

::Gwen shrugged and surged forward, feigning low and taking the demon off guard with a high kick to the side of it's head. It staggered back and Gwen decided to try something she'd never done before.

::Bringing her power up to the maximum level, she concentrated all of it into her hands. Blue sparks of electricty danced across her knuckles as she closed her hands into fists and attacked the demon guard. Everywhere her punches landed, skin sizzled. The demon grunted as numerous burns began to appear on its body, smoke rising from the wounds as Gwen cooked the tough hide with every blow.

::She smiled as the demon began to grow weak, the pain of the burns, not to mention the sheer number of them, too much for the thing to handle.

::It's knees buckled and it collasped to the floor of the room. Gwen noticed a larger burn in the centre of the demon's chest. It was obviously an area her fists had landed more than one blow. Pulling back her arm, Gwen hit out with all the power she had. Her hand plunged into the demon's chest, almost up to her elbow. Gwen screamed loudly as she threw every molecule of power she had into the demon's body, cooking it from the inside out.

::She demon smoked and sizzled, burning flesh filled the air and the corpse fell away, pulling Gwen's fist free.

::The would-be leader fell to her knees.::

"Now THAT was awesome.::

[Angels baby101]

:: Illyria quickly kicked off the demon who had just tackled her and began to rise to her feet just in time to notice the demon rushing toward her, grabbing him by his arm as he came into reach she throws him into the hard wall across from where the stood, taking a moment to ram his head into it a few times before throwing him into the middle of the room waiting for him to rise to his feet again her arm covered with a bit of green ooze.::

"Disgusting..."

:: Making her way to the middle of the room as the demon begins to rise catching a hard hit to her stomach taking her breath away for a moment, straightening up she and the demon began to spar taking hits and receiving them she began to tire of the back and forth punches and kicks. Illyria quickly dropped to her knee's swinging her leg out and knocking the demon onto his back in a swift motion. Grabbing the demon Illyria wraps her arms around his neck and giving it a quick twist until she hears the distinctive crack of a breaking neck, satisfied with her work she quickly gets to her feet and looks around the room. Everyone was finishing off the rest of the demons.::

"Now which way?"

[Connor]

::Connor was struggling with the demon before him. Returning to his life at Stanford, he's neglected his training. Granted, he was the son of two vampires, gifted with skills beyond anything human that wasn't a Slayer, but he still needed to work out to keep himself in shape. But he had to admit, he'd been hoping that his demon fighting days were behind him.

::But now, on this mission with people, bar Illyria, who had chosen to fight this fight, to be part of the team, Connor knew that he had to make that choice too. To fight with the team or leave it all behind once and for all. And 'for all' meant leaving his father as well. He wasn't sure if he could do that.

::Using a move his seen Angel make a thousand times, Connor twisted his body underneath the demons reach and it lifted it's sword for the final blow. Connor came up behind the demon. He pulled the sword out of it's grasp, using it's surprise against it.

::Utilizing every piece of supernatural strength he possess, Connor pulled back and rammed the sword through the tough hide of the demon. The blade protruded to the other side and Connor pushed on it until it embedded in the wall, pinning the demon in place.

::He laughed.::

"Anyone for a demon kabab?"

::Looking around, he saw that everyone else had finished their fight also. Illyria was speaking to the group, Gunn was wiping his axe on the drapes, Amy was just coming back to herself and Gwen was on her knees on the floor.

::Connor went to the fallen Gwen and helped her to her feet.::

"Here, lean on me."

::He glanced at Illyria.::

"I don't know, I didn't get a good look at the scmatics of the place, but I'm gussing it's this way."

::He led the group out of the room, leaving the corspes behind them.::

[Lyri]

::Leaning heavily on Connor, her energy slowly coming back to her, Gwen lead the gang to the room next door.

::The item of their quest, the small urn Willow had shown her a picture of, was sitting on a little pedestal in the middle of the room.

::Gwenh held up a hand.::

"Nobody move. There are lazers covering the place, protecting whatever the hell that thing is."

::Pulling Connor with her, she was still letting him hold her up, Gwen crouched down and stuided the lazers, finding the alarms they would activate if they were tripped.

::She smiled at Connor.::

"Thanks for the help, stud, but you gotta let go for a minute."

::Gwen waited until Connor was well out of touching distance, before she stuck her hand into the middle of one of the lazers. She felt the electricity flowing into her body, and she used the power to redirect the lazers, moving them into the corner, giving them a clear path towards the urn.::

"Connor, you mind grabbing that thing? I'm a little tied up here."

[Connor]

::Connor nodded his head once and carefully made his way across the room. He knew Gwen had control of whatever power was runing the lazers, but he didn't know what kind of alarm the lazers would trip. Sirens? Calling in lots of smelly demons, making them fight all over again. Or something more sinister? Acid rain falling from the sprinklers, instant death for everyone one who wasn't Illyria.

::Before he knew it, Connor was at the pedestal, and the little urn that had caused them so many problems, was right before him.:

"Watch out for a pressure trigger," Gunn called out to him.

::Connor nodded in response. He crossed to the windown and picked a small vase up off the sill that was roughly the same shape as the urn...well, it had the same shape bottom.

::Using his vampire reflexes, which were getting a lot more exercise this trip than they had in weeks, Connor switched the urn, leaving the vase in it's place. He could feel the pressure trigger under his hands as he removed the urn, and for one of only a half dozen times in his life, he was thankful that he had inherited his parents gifts.

::Holding up his prize, Connor turned back to the group.::

"Can't believe we had to risk our necks for something so small."

::He smiled.::

"Let's get the hell outta here."