Entrances

Disclaimer: In first order logic: Owns(Buffy, Joss) && Owns(Stargate, MGM) && Me != Joss && Me != MGM => !Owns(Me, Buffy) && !Owns(Me, Stargate)

Time line: For BtVS this is set a few months after “Chosen”, ignoring anything happening in comic books / novels etc. For SG-1 it is set late season 2 around about “One false step”. Adjust/ignore the real calendar to account for this as necessary. Kelley’s Island is a real place but my knowledge of it is based on their website and Internet maps. It all probability, it doesn’t really contain a Hellmouth.

Author's Note: This is a BtVS/Stargate ficathon entry for Ava who wanted:

- Buffy/Daniel, Dawn/Cam, Dawn/Jonas, Joyce/Jack, Buffy/Vala or Faith/Jack pairings.

- Illyria, Faith, Vala, Daniel, Cam or Buffy in a gen fic.

- Must contain Gate travel, General Hammond and Snow cones.

- Must not contain character death, character bashing or age regression.

Filtering that list by the above timeline should give you the approximate cast. It’s also a bit of a departure from my normal writing style, being action based rather than a comedy. It will probably grow to around 20 chapters.

Thanks: To Ponder for beta reading this story. It's probably now at least a thousand characters longer, just from the extra commas!


Kelley's Heroes

“So, what’s the sitch?”

“Last warehouse on the right – see the demon standing guard outside the door?”

“Ugly.”

“He’s got at least eight friends inside.”

“Same species?”

“Think so.”

“Seen anything suspicious or unusual?”

“Apart from the eight demons going into a warehouse guarded by another demon?”

“Apart from that.”

Faith turned her head away from surveying the building to survey the young Dominican slayer at her side. After surviving the collapse of Sunnydale, Caridad had remained with the newly reformed Watchers’ Council, and was part of a team assigned to the Cleveland Hellmouth. Four months on from being called, she had fully embraced the slayer way of life and was due to attend Notre Dame College in the fall. The Council’s funding easily beat any part-time job she would otherwise need to support herself during her studies.

The Hellmouth itself wasn’t actually in Cleveland, but was located on Kelley’s Island, 25 miles west of the edge of the Cleveland urban area, where it had been misdiagnosed by the United States Geological Survey as “glacial grooves” and made into a state park. The island was in Lake Erie and just under four square miles in size. The Watchers’ Council of old had had the foresight to purchase the freehold of much of the property there, but did not have any of its staff on permanent station, save for the semi-retired Ernie Jacobs who ran the local grocery store and kept an eye out for anything supernatural. After the new Council had gained control of their resources and the events in Sunnydale had awoken the Hellmouth, they had occupied one of the historic mansions on the western coast of the island. They turned it into a training camp for slayers and witches as well as a base from which to monitor the Hellmouth – much to the shock of Ernie who had pretty much been out of contact with London even prior to the attacks by the bringers. It had taken some swift explaining on his part when he was found in the bushes at the back of the property with a large zoom lens and a notebook by two newly called slayers.

Despite the presence of the Hellmouth, demonic activity was fairly rare. The small population of 400 islanders made going unnoticed fairly difficult, and the small land area made for easy patrolling. The years he spent with Anya had obviously had an effect on Xander who, on his first visit to the island, had shown both business and tactical acumen in buying out the company that operated the only ferry service to and from the mainland. It was amazing how effective the simple measure of having a slayer accompany the only night time sailing had turned out to be in curtailing what little activity there was.

Whilst being an almost perfect location for trainees to practice their art, the “House on the Hellmouth” as it was affectionately known was lacking in one important area – anything to do. Hence, Faith preferred to stay in the Council’s downtown base of operations back in Cleveland where there was more nightlife in both senses of the word. Unlike the island or Sunnydale, the city was far too big for random patrols to be effective, even with a team of 4 slayers in residence. Therefore, they spent more time acting on tip offs from the demon underworld than on random patrols of graveyards. However, the two areas that were patrolled regularly were the nightclubs around the Irishtown bend in the old river where the vamps were known to chow down on the late night revellers, and the warehouses around the old docks, many of which were disused and made an ideal lair. It was while walking through the latter that Caridad had spotted the demons, and called for backup on her cell.



Having received Caridad’s initial assessment of the situation, Faith had a dilemma. Her instinct was to head over to the front door, dispatch the guard then clean out whatever was in the warehouse, but she didn’t know what else lay inside. Were there just the eight demons or did they have more friends inside? The reptilian-looking guard did not appear to be armed and did not wear any clothing in which to conceal weapons, so he should be easy enough for two slayers to take down. In her youth she would not have even bothered to stop and think about whether to charge in or not, but having lived longer than any other slayer in history (whenever the topic came up, she insisted that dying twice meant Buffy’s tenure had to be considered as three separate stints and therefore didn't count), these days she took a bit more care in ensuring she extended her record.

“C’mon, let’s see if we can get a look inside without being noticed,” she said, leading Caridad towards the back of an adjacent warehouse. The lock on the rear door proved no match for slayer strength and they quickly made their way through the interior towards the roof ladder. As they climbed a staircase to the gantry from which the ladder ascended, Faith paused to rip the wooden handrail loose and brought it with her, much to the confusion of her companion.

“What are you going to do with that – a bit long for staff fighting isn’t it?” she asked.

“Didn’t you do balance beam in gym class?”

Faith led her out onto the roof and over to the edge adjacent to the building the demons occupied. The railing was carefully lowered to bridge the gap and the slayers silently made their way across onto the other roof. It featured a similarly designed access hatch. Quietly, they pulled it open and descended the ladder onto a gantry in a corresponding position to the one they had left from. Faith was glad she hadn’t rushed the front door – the number of demons inside was closer to 80 than 8.

“Shi...mmpfh!”

Faith removed her hand from Caridad’s mouth then raised a finger to her own. Below the demons were being organised into four squads by whatever the demon equivalent of a corporal was - clan leaders maybe. Not being fluent in whichever demon tongue they were speaking, she wasn’t sure why, but each group was located in a corner of the warehouse and was in formation as if they were about to set off on a march, except none of them were facing the door. Their purpose became a little more apparent when a human emerged from the office at the side of the building. She didn’t need to wait for any spells to be cast to determine that this guy was a mage – he was obviously a regular buyer from the Elminster Aumar mail order fashions catalogue. (Faith had discovered a few months earlier when stuck on the island with nothing to do in the evening that joining whichever online D&D game Andrew was playing and proceeding to wipe out any and every thing in her path was a great way to wind him up. Much to his chagrin, it seemed that a slayer’s ability to become an instant expert in any weapon she held applied to the virtual variety as well as the physical. The downside was she had to be careful not to use words like ‘Elminster’ in public, lest her street cred be completely destroyed.)

“Are all squads ready, Gadavok?” the mage below asked one of the four demons who appeared to be in charge. So they spoke English as well. That would be handy when it came to question them.

“We are ready to depart,” came the reply. Depart for where was the question in Faith’s mind, hoping that her gut feeling was wrong. Currently there was no senior staff member on the island - only five trainee slayers, three wicca and two watchers. And one of those was Ernie; they definitely weren’t ready for an assault on this scale.

“Cari, get back outside and call the island – let them know they may have incoming - then call downtown and have them get the cavalry on standby.”

Below them, the mage had begun casting. The demons placed a crystal in front of each squad to act as a focus for the magic and, as the mage completed his chant, a portal sprang open from each crystal. The demons immediately began to enter the portals with the mage accompanying the nearest group.

Faith waited until the last demon of the group directly beneath her gantry was about to enter, then dropped down aiming a kick to its head. Her plan was to knock it out then see if she could ‘persuade’ it to discuss their plans. However, the demon had not read the script. Her foot made a connection with its temple sending it sprawling and Faith immediately took up a fighting stance ready in case it got back up, which it dutifully did. The demon lashed out causing Faith to leap back to avoid the blow. Interrogation was looking less likely and she withdrew her knife to finish it off. Slayer and slayee circled each other until the creature grew impatient and charged. Faith dodged to the left and slashed at her opponent’s chest, the knife penetrating its thick reptilian hide between two scales and a torrent of blood erupted.

“You know there are tablets you can take for high blood pressure?”

Fatally wounded, the demon took one last swing at the slayer, which she easily dodged with a backward leap. Unfortunately for her, she was paying too much attention to the falling demon and not enough attention to the portal which she’d just lept through.



Caridad returned from the roof in just in time to see Faith jumping backwards into the portal and her opponent falling lifelessly to the floor. For an instant she was torn between calling for help and chasing after her sister slayer – after all, with the number of demons, Faith’s odds weren’t good. However, the sudden closure of the portals made her decision for her, and she flipped open her phone to ask for help for the third time that evening.

“Houston, we have a problem.”