Epigoni
by P.H. Wise
An Angel crossover fanfic
Chapter 1 – Cleaning Up After Hell
Disclaimer: I don’t own Angel. I don’t own Stargate. Please don’t sue me. This story contains spoilers for the final episode of Angel. This chapter contains excerpts from numerous episodes of Angel.
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In the depths an underground bunker far beneath Cheyenne Mountain, four men and one woman - General Hammond, Colonel Jack O’Neill, Daniel Jackson, Major Samantha Carter, and Teal’c - sat in a briefing room that could only be described as cozy. It wasn’t the physical features of the room that earned it the title of cozy, however. Certainly, they were each provided with a black leather chair, gathered around a red and black painted wooden table, but their surroundings were far from ordinary; through the window of the briefing room could be seen a large room, the principle features of which were the ancient stone circle that dominated the far wall, the ramp leading up to it, and the heavy machine gun batteries before it that stood unmanned at present. The ‘cozy’ came more from the easy familiarity and friendship of those gathered than from anything else.
Yet General Hammond’s expression was grim as he briefed the flagship team of the SGC on the latest crisis. “A little over two hours ago,” he began, “a police squad car in Los Angeles was attacked by what the officer described as ‘an army of monsters.’ After radioing in a call for assistance, all contact was lost with the officer.”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Jack’s expression was a dubious one. “An army of monsters, Sir?” he asked, his tone carrying hints of sarcasm.
“I know how it sounds, but after radio contact was lost, the local police departments dispatched several nearby units to investigate.” Although it scarcely seemed possible, General Hammond’s expression became even grimmer. “They found what was left of the officer scattered across twenty yards of roadway, as well as the bodies of six civilians and significant property damage.” He paused to let that sink in before going on. “Ten minutes later, another officer about a mile away made a similar report. The police mobilized in force. Every officer in the area was called in, including a highly trained and capable SWAT team. None of them reported back after making contact with these ‘monsters’.”
“The Goa’uld?” Major Carter asked.
Hammond nodded. “It’s possible. If an advance force of Super Soldiers had landed in the Los Angeles area, that might explain why the police would think that they were facing an army of ‘monsters.”
Teal’c interjected. “Such tactics are unlike those usually practiced by the Goa’uld.”
“So either our old buddy Anubis has learned a few new tricks...” Jack began.
“Or a new, heretofore unknown and hostile alien race has landed in L.A.,” Daniel finished.
The General nodded. There was another possibility, he knew, but such public displays were completely out of character with any kind of behavior thus far observable in hostile sub-terrestrials, and the likelihood of them being organized into an army was, from all available data, slim to none. “The Pentagon agrees with your assessment.”
“So, what are we walking into, General?” Jack asked.
“We are working with the Army to place the entirety of the Los Angeles basin under quarantine. The media blackout is already in effect, and the weaponry to deal with super soldiers is being supplied to the troops in the area by our friends at Area 51. By the time you arrive in California, if all goes according to plan, the threat will be contained. Contained, but not eliminated. We have recalled every team that could be spared from their current missions off world. You will be working with SG units two through eleven, as well as a number of squads from the Army and the standard Air Force; your assignment is threefold, first to deal with the alien threat, second, to evacuate any civilians who may still be in the area, and third, we need some troops on the ground who have faced this kind of thing before, and people, you’re it. Any questions?”
Silence hung in the briefing room.
“SG-1, you have a go.”
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The courtyard of the Hyperion was wild and overgrown, full of clinging vines, brushing leaves, and catching branches. The song of the crickets filled the air, the little insects heedless of the goings on of the human and demon worlds, greeting the night in the only way they knew. The rain had stopped several minutes earlier, but the clouds still loomed ominously over Los Angeles; nature yet had more rain to fling down upon her errant children, and the rain-smell filled the air; the air was clear, and the smog had been washed away, for a little while.
It was through this courtyard that Illyria and the Groosalug passed on their way into the hotel, and although Illyria’s injuries had not healed, she was too proud to accept the help that was offered her. “I do not require your assistance, half-breed,” she said, although her wounds belied her.
Groo didn’t press the issue. “We may take shelter here,” he said, glancing about at the hotel lobby. It was covered in dust, and the mess left in the wake of Jasmine’s brief rule here had not been fully cleaned up, but it would suit their needs. The settee was still there, sitting in the middle of the lobby. Feeling very old and very weary, he sat himself down on it and looked towards Illyria, who yet stood upon the steps of the entryway.
The Old One looked about, birdlike, her eyes flitting from one side of the room to the other, before she strode purposefully into the lobby and then up the stairs and out of sight down one of the hallways.
It was then that the sheer strangeness of his situation really hit him. Here he was in Los Angeles, again. He had come because of hearing rumors of the stirrings of the order of the Wolf, Ram, and Hart in the city of Angels, and he had thought to lend his strong sword arm to the cause of Angel Investigations. But no one had been at the Hyperion when he’d arrived; it had looked much like it did now, as though no one had been there in some time.
He’d searched the local demon bars for any word of where he could find Angel and his warriors. It was there that he had run into a drunken Lorne, and there that he had learned of Cordelia’s fate, and of Angel’s plan to challenge the Senior Partners. He could have stayed to hear more; Lorne was certainly talkative once he’d gotten a couple of sea-breezes in him, but Groo had rushed out then and there. Overcome by grief at the news of the death of his Princess, he had rushed out to join Angel and his friends, to fight at their side in one last, glorious battle.
By the time the Groosalug had arrived on the scene, the battle was ended, and the streets drenched with demon-gore. And now, here he was in the Hyperion again, not twenty yards from where Angel and his warriors had met their glorious end in battle, in the company of one who looked like Fred but wasn’t, and behaved for all the world as if she were a deity.
Even when she’d been Fred, he hadn’t really known Fred that well to begin with.
Not for the first time, Groo found himself missing the simple days of his life as the Groosalug of Pylea. Vanquish the flame beast, defeat the drokken, save the day.
And yet... his life had been a hollow thing before he’d met Cordelia. Before for her sake, he’d dared to imagine that he was not simply ‘cow-tainted,’ but someone worthwhile because SHE loved him.
-FLASH-
“No,” Cordelia said. Fred gave her a look, and Cordelia elaborated. “You want me to say something to Angel about Wesley. Sorry. Can't. Won't.”
“Why? Why can't you? You've known them both longer than anybody. Angel would listen to you...”
“Probably. But he doesn't want to hear it. Which is why I'm not going to burden him—“
“Look,” said Fred, “whatever he did... It's Wesley. You care about it. I know you do. Can you imagine the pain he's in, how horrible he must be feeling...“
Cordelia interrupted Fred, and her statement was as a knife in the Groosalug’s heart. “Angel's feelings are the only ones I care about. He's my priority.”
-FLASH-
Groo walked in through the front doors into the darkened hotel, and Cordelia smiled and ran towards him. Groo’s mood brightened, and he smiled widely.
And then she spoke.
“Angel. Oh my god, do you know how happy this makes me? I ask you not to go and you didn't go? I'm so glad to see...”
Groo stepped into the light, his smile no more than a memory.
“ ...you. Hi.”
-FLASH-
“I love Angel?” Cordelia asked, “What are you talking about? I - love... you know... us.”
Groo smiled sadly. “You two are so obviously connected. You finish each other’s sentences. You laugh at the same jests. When he grieves, when he is hurting, your heart breaks for him.” He paused. “In my heart I have known the truth for some time. I've just been - struggling - to find the courage to do what is right.”
“I don’t know what to say, Groo.”
“Tell me I'm wrong. - That I should stay. - That you love only me.”
She blinked away tears, and said nothing. And at that, Groo picked up his bags and left, leaving Cordelia standing in the foyer, staring after where he had gone.
-FLASH-
And now she was gone.
Not simply lost to Angel, a fellow warrior who had won his respect, but gone.
Dead.
And he was too late to avenge her.
Ever the champion, ever the man of action, Groo had never been particularly introspective. But there, in the silent hotel, with a grieving Old One as his only company, and all his world fallen around him, he permitted himself a moment of weakness.
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Illyria stood before the open door of the room that had once been her shell’s second cave. Between her grief at the death of Wesley, her injuries, and the deaths of Angel, Spike, and Gunn, the god-king was nearly spent; only her pride sustained her now, and even that would only carry her so far. She stepped into the room.
It was cluttered. In Fred’s haste to move out, she had left things behind. The cast off knick-knacks of Fred littered the floor: here a book on astrophysics, there an old taco wrapper, an old silver cross on a silver chain lying on the bed, and a device that was either a very strange toaster or a ranged decapitation device in the corner. The smell of the place assaulted her senses, and for a moment, Illyria reeled. The musty smell of old books mixed with traces of the perfume that Fred had worn, with a faint tinge of dust and mouldy taco completing the aroma.
She fell back against the wall and slid down it into a sitting position, her shell’s emotions churning. Her shell’s emotions. Her SHELL’S emotions. She told it to herself over and over, but it didn’t help; whether they belonged to her or to her shell, it made no difference now, for she felt them all the same: grief, the shock of her injuries, and a wholly unfamiliar feeling that Illyria despised, but that Fred’s memories identified as guilt. There were ghosts in this place. Not human spirits, but the unquiet ghosts of Fred’s life, Fred’s hopes, Fred’s dreams, Fred’s memories. She shook her head fiercely. The SHELL, not Fred.
Before her eyes, the walls changed. They were covered in equations, writings, drawings, madness scribbled upon the walls of a new cave, and she huddled there before one small section of wall, fiercely writing the words, over and over, “LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN.”
Illyria snapped out of the vision with a jolt. “You will not have me!” she shrieked. “I was the god to a god! I lived seven lives at once! I will not be undone by you!”
-FLASH-
She was alone in a dark room, hiding underneath a bed, and her terror magnified every sound, every sensation. From down the hall, she could hear Wesley’s voice calling to her, and for a moment, she had to fight the urge to go to him. He wasn’t himself. It wasn’t safe.
"Fred? - I know what you're doing. - What you're up to. - Luring me. Forcing me to find you. - Oh, it's such a dog and pony show. - You beguile me with your girlish ways. I pursue you, but you never give over, do you? - No, you just keep laughing and running. Well, guess what, my love - I'm not some downy-faced schoolboy.” He was right outside the room now, and he pushed open the door with his axe – the safety chain stopped the door from opening all the way. “I'm a man."
Illyria wanted to stride boldly out to meet him, to strike him down and show her guide his proper place. But she could not control her body. Fred’s memories of fear raced through the Ancient’s mind, and she snarled impotently.
Wes kicked the door open, and the light of the hallway illuminated Illyria’s surroundings. The room was dark and empty, with only a bed, a pile of boards, a stool, and a can of paint to show for decoration.
"You can't come out into the open, can you? No, you hide, you deceive.” He walked into the room, the light glinting off the ax held before him. “It's nothing new. It goes all the way back to Eve. You and the serpent plotting behind our backs: 'Here, honey, eat this. It's just an apple.' That's the problem with your sex. You're all weak, and you're all dirty and you won't be satisfied until you've brought each and everyone of us out of the garden and down into the muck with you!"
“Your pathetic species is weak, and dirty,” Illyria tried to say, though nothing came out of Fred’s mouth. “You won’t be satisfied until you’ve brought each and every one of US down into the muck with you.” She began to rant soundlessly, then. “Pathetic, sniveling worms. Your tiny minds bathe in a chemical soup that infects everything you do. I taste it every day, every second, crying and sweating and puking their feelings all over me...” her mental rant was interrupted by Fred’s smothered gasp. Wesley had smashed the stool with his axe, breaking it and sending the tools set thereon scattering across the floor.
Wesley picked up the mattress of the bed and flung it against the wall. Peering down at her through the bed frame, she could see the hate glittering in his eyes. "Why do you make me do this?" he asked.
-FLASH-
"Would you like to hear my theory, Fred? - It's about how stupid you are. I believe that after five years of living in a cave you'll instinctively retreat to small dark places, rather than run outside where you'd be safe."
The floor creaked beneath Wesley’s feet as he stalked towards the closet door. "Let's finish this."
He pulled the closet door open violently, only to see in the mirror on the inside of the door that Fred is standing behind him.
"I'm sorry, Wesley," said Fred.
He turned to face her. "You're sorry?"
"You were right about me liking dark places to hide in."
Wes raised his ax and slowly walked towards her.
"But you forgot I also like to build things." Fred pulled on a rope. A fire extinguisher swung free of where it had been placed. It hit Wes full on, knocking him back onto the tarp, and he falls through the weakened floor, landing, unconscious, in the room below.
A savage sense of triumph flooded through Illyria at that sight. Wesley had paid for his presumption in daring to challenge her... her... shell?
-FLASH-
Illyria shuddered. Her fever had abated, but she was still very, very weak, her long, blue hair clinging to her sweat-streaked face. “Why did we go there?” she asked desperately. “Why did we think we could beat it? It's evil, Wesley. It's bigger than anything.”
Wesley leaned in close. “I don’t believe that.”
She backed up towards the headboard of her bed, panicked. “Uggh...!” She pointed at Wes, tears sparkling in her eyes. “I’m with him!” She began to cry. “He won’t leave me now. We’re so close.”
Wesley met her panicked gaze. “I will never leave you.”
Illyria panted for breath, and then seemed to recover. “That was bad, but it’s better now. You won’t leave me?”
He kneeled in front of her. “I won’t.”
“My boys. I walk with heroes. Think about that.”
Wesley visibly struggled to hold himself together, but he couldn’t quite stop his tears. “You are one.”
“Superhero. And this is my power: to not let them take me. Not me.”
Wesley sat down beside her and wrapped her up in his embrace. “That’s right.”
Illyria laced her fingers through his. “That’s right. He’s with me.”
A horrible not-silence hung between them for a moment as Illyria struggled for breath.
“Will you kiss me?” she asked.
Wesley kissed her, tender and passionate in equal measure. After a moment, Illyria pulled away.
“Would you have loved me?”
Wesley nodded. “I've loved you since I've known you. No, that's not—I think maybe even before.”
She leaned her forehead against his. “I'm so sorry.”
“No,” he said tenderly, “no, no.”
Illyria choked on her coughs; tears flowing freely down her face. She recovered after a moment, but was not as strong afterwards. “I need you to talk to my parents. They have to know I wasn't scared, that it was quick. That I wasn't scared.” She began to convulse. “Oh, God...”
Wesley grabbed her by the arms, looking straight into her eyes. “You have to fight. You don't have to talk, just concentrate on fighting. Just hold on.”
Illyria looked into his eyes, and her body quivered uncontrollably. “I'm not scared. I'm not scared. I'm not scared,” she insisted, her frightened tone belying her words. After a few moments, her grip softened, and she sank into his arms.
Weakly, she spoke. “Please, Wesley, why can't I stay?”
Her body went still in Wesley’s arms.
Wesley looked down at her limp body, sorrow twisting in his heart. “Please...” he said, his voice filled with desperation. He hugged her tightly to himself, and then said, more softly, but filled with no less desperate longing than before, “... please...”
A change began to flow over Illyria’s body. Her eyes softened, and the familiar blue streaks began to fade into natural skin. She kicked her body away from Wesley, sending him across the room, and pushing her to the floor.
Wesley watched in horror as Illyria’s body convulsed. Watched in horror as the woman he loved more than life itself, died.
The transformation complete, Fred rose to her feet. All too human, she examined her hand, flexing and unflexing her fingers.
“This will do.”
-FLASH-
Illyria stared wide-eyed into the darkness. It hadn’t happened that way. That wasn’t the way it had been. These were HER memo... her SHELL’S memories.
They weren’t fading.
Maybe it had been a mistake to come here; maybe it had been a mistake to come to a place so rich in the memories of the shell. And yet... and yet... no. She wouldn’t be beaten by Winifred Burkle. If to accept these memories was the only way to win, then accept them she would, but she would remain Illyria. She had lived seven lives at once; what was an eighth?
She was weary, moreso than she had ever felt since awakening within this shell. Overcome with exhaustion, and with the majority of her energies devoted to healing her battered shell, she found that she could not this night supersede the human need for rest; barely conscious, the Old One crawled into Fred’s old bed, fell fast asleep, and dreamed of Wesley.
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A swarm of military aircraft and ground vehicles had descended upon Los Angeles. Power was out in many areas, but soldiers had set up huge generator powered floodlights in those areas. News media vehicles buzzed around the edge of the quarantine. For all that they couldn’t get close, they knew that this was probably the story of the century, and they were determined to cover it. The city was a confusing mass of light and thunder, as Army, Air Force, and Stargate troops found and engaged the enemy.
It was into this city in chaos that the helicopter carrying SG-1 descended, dropping the team off at the base camp that had been established barely a block away from the Hyperion hotel. The power was out here, and the streets were lit with floodlights. In the hours it had taken the Stargate personnel to travel from Colorado to the California coast, the rain had come and gone and come and gone. The stars and the moon shone through holes in the cloud cover, bathing the world below in their light. It was breathtaking, but people paid it little mind; they had other things to deal with.
The ‘copter lifted off immediately upon SG-1’s disembarkation.
Jack O’Neill had only a moment to take in his surroundings before he was approached by an Air Force officer, one Lieutenant Ryan by name. “Sir! We’ve been expecting you!”
Jack turned towards the young lieutenant. The man’s rank was plainly displayed on his clothing, but his name was nowhere to be seen. “Lieutenant...?”
“Michael Ryan, sir.”
“Ryan. Right. So what’s the situation, Ryan?”
“We have sealed off most of the Los Angeles basin, grounded all civilian aircraft, and have begun sweeps of the city. Contact has been made with several groups of hostiles with heavy casualties on both sides. The hostiles appear to be highly disorganized, behaving more like looters and pillagers than a military unit, and we have received scattered reports of small groups of teenaged girls fighting against the hostiles, sir.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Teenaged girls?”
“That’s what I was told, sir.”
“Anything,” he paused briefly in between the words, giving his words a slightly sarcastic edge, “else?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve located where we believe the incursion began. If you’ll follow me, Sir.” He turned, and led SG-1 up the street towards the Hyperion hotel.
“So what are we looking for?” Carter asked.
And then they rounded the corner. There, peering into the alley beside the Hyperion, Carter and Dr. Jackson stared open-mouthed. Jack and Teal’c took it a bit more stoically, but to those who knew them well, it was clear that they too were shocked by the sheer carnage that they saw before them. Bodies were piled on top of one another from one end of the alley to the other, and although the rain had done much to wash away the blood, the pavement was yet stained with it. Body parts, and strange viscera had been flung everywhere, and the stench of it nearly bowled them over.
But the bodies weren’t human. Nor were they super soldiers. Grimly, SG-1 strode into the alley.
Most of the bodies were unrecognizable, from species that none of the Stargate personnel had ever seen before. But some of the corpses they HAD seen before.
Unas.
About a dozen of them, scattered throughout the field of corpses.
And there, at the very end of the alley, surrounded by the inhuman carnage, lay a single dead well dressed African-American male, a home made battle-axe clutched in his hands, and a large sword discarded at his side.
Dr. Jackson reached down and checked the corpse’s pockets, coming up with a wallet in which several forms of identification could be found: a California driver’s license identified the man as Charles Gunn, while a business card in his pocket proclaimed him an Attorney of Law. He held up the ID and the business card for the inspection of his teammates.
“So, kids,” Jack began, “Any ideas?”
“It would appear that this man did battle against the hostile force, O’Neill,” said Teal’c.
Daniel spoke next. “There’s no way that one man could have killed that many aliens by himself, with just an axe and a sword.”
Jack glanced at Daniel. “So you’re saying...”
“He had to have had help. And lots of it, by the looks of it.”
Carter spoke next. “Do any of the injuries on these aliens look like the result of gunshots?”
The others glanced about. No, the injuries on the aliens were obviously not gun injuries. They were far more consistent with what would be caused by bladed weaponry. Some, however, looked like they had not been so much cut down as torn apart.
Jack raised a speculative eyebrow. “So lawyer boy here gathers an army to take on an alien invasion force, and he is the only human casualty of the battle? Sorry, not buying it.”
They left the alleyway behind them, and Jack glanced about. “Ryan, have these buildings been secured?” he asked, gesturing towards the Hyperion and its neighboring buildings.
“We have teams inside the buildings now, sir.”
“Ah,” Jack said. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by the sound of gunfire from within the Hyperion. He glanced at his team, and made a hand-signal indicating that they should follow him.
SG-1 moved out.
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“Insolent humans!” Illyria roared as she cast a highly trained black ops trained soldier off the balcony and into the lobby of the hotel. “Such presumption, to think that you could simply walk into MY domain and claim it for your own!” She strode imperiously down the staircase to where the man’s squad-mates were waiting with assault rifles in hand.
They opened fire.
If the bullets caused her harm, she showed no sign of it. Snarling, she fell upon in a whirlwind of fists and fury. The Groosalug joined the battle a moment later, coming out of one of the side corridors and, after taking in the situation, he charged into battle with all the abandon of a warrior who is certain that his cause is just.
The soldiers never stood a chance. Within seconds, all of them were either unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.
It didn’t occur to Illyria to wonder why she was refraining from killing them.
Yet even as the last man fell, another group of soldiers burst through the front doors of the Hyperion, drawn by the sound of gunfire. Groo took two bullets almost immediately; he was no fool, he knew very well that even the Groosalug could not stand before such weapons. Yet no sooner had he moved to duck under cover than one of the soldiers – a dark skinned man with a golden serpent upon his forehead – produced a small, serpentine weapon and blasted him with a beam of intense blue light.
Groo staggered but did not fall, and the soldier raised a speculative eyebrow before firing again; this time, Groo fell, his consciousness retreating before the pain of the zat gun.
Teal’c turned to face the blue woman, who, in the time it had taken him to deal with the male warrior, had thrown DanielJackson into the far wall, swept Carter’s legs out from under her, and was about to lay into Jack when Teal’c opened fire.
The first blast only got Illyria’s attention.
She darted towards him, moving almost too quickly for the human eye to perceive; yet Teal’c was unphased. He fired twice more before she reached him, and each shot struck its mark.
The third shot staggered her, but then she was upon him. The last thing Teal’c saw before he lost consciousness was Illyria’s cold, metallic blue eyes boring into his own.
Jack opened fire on her, then, this time with his zat. A moment later, Sam joined the effort.
They fired blast after blast of blue energy at the god-king, and in truth, had she been at full strength, it likely would not have been enough. But Illyria, recovered as she was, was not yet fully healed. Finally, after twenty some zat blasts, she sank to her knees, and then fell face first onto the floor.
As the Old One fell, Jack breathed a sigh of relief. “Carter, check on Daniel,” he said even as he himself went to see to Teal’c.
Teal’c awoke even as O’Neill bent down to check on him.
“How ya feeling, T?” Jack asked.
“I am unwell, O’Neill.” the Jaffa hissed. His breathing sounded labored, and there was already significant discolouration around his left eye where Illyria had struck him. “That woman may have cracked one or more of my ribs.”
“Been better, then?”
“Indeed.”
“Can you walk?”
Teal’c nodded. “I believe so.”
With Jack’s help, the Jaffa rose to his feet.
“Daniel’s out, sir,” Carter called.
Jack nodded. He took a moment to pick up his radio and call for a medevac, and then glanced towards where Lieutenant Ryan was checking on the two hostiles they had taken down. “What about them?”
“They’re both alive,” said Ryan, his shock plainly evident in his voice. He’d heard about zat guns – one shot hurts, two shots kill, three shots disintegrate. Yet here these two lay, unconscious but alive, after taking multiple zat blasts each.
Jack approached the two fallen hostiles with a speculative look.
“Now what are we going to do with you?” he asked.
End Chapter One
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