our hospital facilities are nationally acclaimed

[cross_and_bow]

Bella wakes up a day and a half later, a medical miracle with a splitting headache. (Between what she knows about her own construction and what the doctors mutter to the nurses, the demon stepped on her, it broke her spine, she passed out from pain and shock, and she could have easily died if she weren't blessed or the Slayer - both were probably called for.)

[Sherlock? Giles?] she attempts, when she's solicited and received pain medication.

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

It's a straight tunnel, not branching or, after it reaches a level trajectory, sloping.

It leads into a tremendous cavern.

This tremendous cavern is full of not six, not a dozen, not even one hundred Defenders.

But several thousand.

Doing a complicated dance of some kind, in rings and rings and rings around the center of the cavern.

The Defenders don't notice them, flashlight or no.

The man lounging on the thronelike chair in the cavern - does.

[eversomuchfun]

"Fuck," mutters Sherlock.

[Plan of attack, love?]

[cross_and_bow]

[...Let's try running, first?]

And she conferences in Giles. [GILES THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF THEM AND THE DUDE WHO'S MAKING THEM DANCE AROUND HIM SAW US WE DON'T HAVE THAT MANY SQUARES]

[eversomuchfun]

[Good plan.]

[pythbox]

[...Definitely an apocalyptic ritual?] he says helplessly. [Er. Run?]

[cross_and_bow]

[Way ahead of you there's a tunnel they'll have to follow singlefile we can clog it with dead ones -] She looks over her shoulder and kills the first, and the second, timed for when it's standing on top of the first. She doesn't slow down.

She scrambles up the handholds she made, which prove fairly adequate.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock kills the next two at the appropriate moment and scrambles up after her.

[cross_and_bow]

There's her truck. Full of gas and ready to go.

The ground is trembling.

The Defenders probably dug that tunnel.

And apparently that's not the sort of thing that takes them a long time.

All around them, orange trees topple and oranges scatter - and the ground is honeycombed with holes -

And Defenders climb out.

Bella kills the first two dozen she sees. She has one square left, and the live ones just push aside the dead and keep coming.

She has one square left.

She wishes.

The back of the truck makes a clattering sound as all of Shell Bell's donated squares pour into it from the chest at the brick house. Bella vaults into the back of the truck and buries her hands in coins and wishes as fast as she can. "Sherlock," she breathes.

[eversomuchfun]

He also brought squares, and he can wish on them as fast as Bella can.

All the ones in his clothes are already gone. He digs into the pile in the back of the truck, disdaining to sight on targets when he may as well just wish death on the closest Defender. Over and over again. Until he has to scramble for coins wedged into corners.

[cross_and_bow]

"I don't know if we have enough - what if we don't -" Wishwishwishwishwishwishwish the squares are disappearing like their very touch is anathema.

[eversomuchfun]

"We do," he says briefly. "Unless he makes more."

[cross_and_bow]

"What if he can," and she leaves off talking to go for her fire-wand, but as expected, it's useless; the Defender she's trying to burn ignores the fire, whether applied inside or out, however hot she makes it, until it gets close and she has to square it dead. The live ones are pulling the corpses aside to clear their path and they just keep coming. Wishwishwishwishwish -

[eversomuchfun]

"Kill him," Sherlock suggests.

[cross_and_bow]

"Do you know where he is? Did he follow them, can you hear him or smell him or anything -"

[eversomuchfun]

"One moment," he says, and risks a glance over the side of the truck.

As he resumes scrabbling after squares, he also points.

"That way. Bottom of a tunnel. I'm not sure which one, but that's where his scent is coming from."

[cross_and_bow]

Bella tries to wish him dead. She tries more specificity - wishes his throat slit, his neck broken -

Nothing doing.

"Square won't touch him," she says helplessly. "We might have to kill all the Defenders before I can get at him without getting pulverized."

[eversomuchfun]

"Fire?" he suggests.

[cross_and_bow]

Bella grabs at the wand again, peeps over the edge of the truck, floods all the holes there and the intervening spaces with flames.

The Defenders keep coming. She kills the fire so she can concentrate on wishing. "Can you tell if I got him?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Not sure yet."

[cross_and_bow]

Wish. Wish. Wish. Wish. God, there's so many. "I have never been more annoyed than I am right now that Shell Bell didn't invite me to break her arm for one - damn - pentagon -" Wish wish wish wish wishwishwishwishwish.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock pops up again, just for a moment.

"Don't think you got him," he reports. "Not deep enough, you think?"

[cross_and_bow]

"Or he's protected from fire somehow - But I have to know where to send the fire and I don't know which way the tunnels turn -"

[eversomuchfun]

"I could make a try for him," Sherlock offers. "These things could make my life very unpleasant but they'd have a hard time actually killing me unless they managed to pull my head off."

[cross_and_bow]

"But they could probably do that. One of them carelessly stepping on me would probably've killed me if it weren't for Amariah's work." Wishwishwishwish -

[eversomuchfun]

"Of the two of us I'm still better suited to make the attempt if we run out of squares."