Fic: CPA8 Final

Author: Norgco

Summary: Armageddon arrives

Type: Buffy/x-files/Smallville crossover

Rating: pg

Couples: Anya/Faith/Xander - yes, I think they need each other. Mulder/Scully, and a host of others, as Rocky and Bulwinkle always phrased it.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of this.

Feedback: Yes.

CPA8
By Norgco

Smallville Kansas, Armageddon day, a little after noon

Lex was in charge of the security element when the demons attacked the evacuation site. He had some werewolves for close in security, Smallville was an urban area in tactical terms and hand-to-hand was always a possibility. But he himself was using one of the 30 round shotguns, which he had practiced conscientiously with after training from a former Marine on his security staff.

So when the attack came he raised the weapon to his shoulder and started double tapping the howling mass. Always raise the weapon and aim properly, even at touching distance, was the thing he needed to remember at this point, his instructor drilled that into him.

"Never do that movie star shit with the gun at the waist. You can miss an elephant at 10 feet when it's real, even if you can hit a mouse on the moon in practice." The man had leaned directly over him, face inches away, glaring. "AIMED FIRE PEOPLE, ONE ROUND ON TARGET IS WORTH A THOUSAND IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION, AM I CLEAR!"

Green blood sprayed over him from whatever it was he just decapitated. The fight was claw to claw, teeth and jaws for the most part, but the billionaire kept cool, aimed fire going out despite it. Lex had turned a loss making plant in a nowhere town into a personal fiefdom partly by paying competent people for advice and then LISTENING to it, this was no different.

"Yes Gunnery Sergeant, aimed fire Gunnery Sergeant, no movie star shit Gunnery Sergeant."

It was over during his third magazine, which was good because that was the limit of his ready ammunition. The time lost changing magazines had been exciting enough, three had charged him during the slack in fire and the lower arm of one was still dangling by a claw from his jacket. Actually from the chain mail sewed into the jacket, he would have to thank the tailor properly for suggesting it. The muzzle of the shotgun had been pressed against the creature's chest for that one, resulting in another coating of demon guts soaked into his clothes.

"My god Lex, are you all right?" Carol asked, clutching the terrified Samantha to her chest. It had been necessary to make the party look right, like it was a group of unsuspecting demon hunters having a few days off. He kept telling himself that, had been for the months leading up to it. It was true, which did not make seeing his new wife and child threatened like this any easier.

"Fine Carol, not a scratch on me. Now please get into the bus, I need you to set an example, people will be nervous." The purple clad one said, while handing his empty magazines over for refill and getting another. There were more people willing to take risks than able to fight for this, so he had a small logistics staff to keep ammo coming, reload mags, see to the wounded, etc, he was a businessman, organising was what he did. His wife of one day reached over to his cheek and touched him, then showed him her hand.

"What's this then." There was blood, a lot of it, and a medic began putting a bandage on his face. He touched the area; the slice went from upper left ear to near his mouth. Not too deep, certainly not through the cheek entirely, but it would leave an impressive scar. After some more futile tugging at the arm he took off the jacket, cut off the individual claws with a knife, and replaced the jacket without the annoying extra weight.

"A scratch, didn't notice." And he hadn't, in fact Lex had no memory of how it happened. Presumably he was so focused on killing the demon in question it slipped below his level of `important enough to notice'. He had been warned this sort of thing happened in combat, well, now it had. "And I still need you to take my daughter and leave, because this is not a disciplined evacuation, it will only work if everyone sees it working. If you go the others are more likely to believe I have it all organised and go too, if you don't they will stay and worry everyone and it falls apart."

And then he turned away and went back to the work of the day, relying on her to do what they both knew was needed. The medics were treating injured werewolves, wounded demons were being finished off – after Faith lost a leg to a `surrendered' Feyoral demon taking prisoners had stopped – panicked citizens were being rounded up for the convoy. Busses were being used partly because, with windows removed via gun but, they gave high visibility and a clear field of fire against ambush.

The dark slayer, with the stump of her left leg wrapped and on a light morphine dose, was in the lead guard jeep, shotgun in hand, visibly still in the fight. She had insisted, the main fight needed legs but guarding the convoy only required the demon detecting ability and amazing aim she still had. And it was good for morale to have a slayer with the non-combatants.

The string of vehicles left, and would be back in an hour, the safe house was `over the horizon'; therefore hopefully out of the blast radius if it went badly wrong. Out, unload, return, minus any time for fighting, the battle might be over before they were back. The next one was loading up, he had insisted the town mayor organise just such an evacuation `in case demons attack the town, it is happening all over the world madam mayor', so the police, buss drivers, school teachers etc had practiced this people in their cars first, escorted to avoid traffic problems and show where to go.

California women's prison, 12.37 Smallville time, same day.

"They got Faith stoned and THEN handed her a loaded automatic weapon, are they insane?" The guard commented, for once something guards and prisoners could agree on. The young, dark haired woman was well-remembered figure here, particularly by anyone who had pissed her off and lived to tell the tale. Officially that was everyone, of course, since nothing bad ever happens in a nice, well run jail like this one, and all the people who are found dead in the showers are suicides. Stabbing yourself 15 times in the back and then hiding the weapon seemed to be a favourite method here.

Some prisoners had TV in their rooms, others preferred the recreation room, but everyone was glued to a set watching the war. Coverage had started suddenly, with a crew from a celebrity gossip show that had covered the Luthor wedding the day before, then moved to Armageddon, which is actually a place in Israel, when a huge shimmering disk had appeared and demons started pouring out.

"No, they're desperate, well, wouldn't you be?" The demons in the Middle East were making heavy going of it, with an Alien invasion fleet attacking them in low, slow, passes. The regions armies, which had been quietly briefed to expect this, were mobilising while letting the bad guys kill each other.

So far the aliens were losing badly, after all a B-29 bomber had shot down the UFO at Roswell in 1947, and human technology had improved hugely since then, while the aliens were static. And of course, Clark Kent had finally acquired his flying ability, and was very active in the mid-eastern skies this day. "Whatever the bastards in Smallville are up to its good the slayers were there to fight them."

With Faith crippled, Buffy partially digested when whatever had eaten her was cut in half by Xander, who himself was minus his left arm; things were indeed desperate in Kansas. The only consolation was, as everyone here seemed to agree, there had to be a limited number of demons in the town, because their presence had been kept secret. Keeping the authorities in the dark about planned illegal activities being something individuals here could knowledgeably discuss, and the consensus was that while reinforcements might have come in before the state troopers cut the highway, the bad guys had to be nearly all gone. Of course, that did not mean they would not last longer than the good guys, or finish whatever they were doing before dying.

The Talon Coffee Shop, Smallville, 12.45, Internet café area.

Chloe Sullivan felt strange to be here, on line, while the rest fought it out for the fate of the world. But this was her part of it, to co-ordinate with the Karnak Chroniclers and, through them, the governments fighting the final conflict. She had cameras all over town, a telephone line to Lex and Giles, and was passing on and interpreting what happened for the demonic accountants, who's contacts were still crucial to all this.

"Miss Sullivan, we have no reports on one of the Scoobies, Anya, she seems to be missing."

The virtual reality was absolutely realistic, if she didn't know better she would really have thought she was here. Thinking about that was better than remembering the bitter reality she had to convey.

"She changed, when the gate at Armageddon opened she reverted, she was still an evil demon after all, a vengeance demon and Xander had to, had to…"

"Kill his mate." Jane Smith, her Karnak demon supervisor, quietly added. Jane had been ordered not to be in Smallville for the battle, once Chloe proved there actually would be one here. She had apologised for therefore missing the blonde's birthday, and now seemed saddened beyond words at what the youngest male scoob had had to do. "He had to take the life of a woman he loved, a possible mother of his children, to protect the rest of us. And, of course, being the man he is, he did it."

"Yes." Cloe said.

The demon visibly forced herself to change focus, to move past this subject.

"And how goes the battle?"

"Fighting started when the total conversion field was turned on at 11.15 am, which is also when the Evil One arrived and opened the gate to hell. The power plant set off Willow, she could feel it and warned the rest." And then the killing happened. She was reviewing known data, which both had found useful as preparation to explaining the present and predicting future actions. "Clark had already gone to fight the UFO's, so Buffy walked over with Willow to check out the problem and something ate her when she walked in the door. The witch fireballed the room, then went for help, chased by a mixed group of demons."

Willow had been unable to give a coherent explanation, `we walked in and it ate Buffy' was the clearest they had. It was, of course, the highest probability way for the blonde slayer to die. Anything that just walked up to her was dead meat, she WAS the older slayer to ever live and experience tells, the blonde student thought.

She could see the power plant, or rather the energy conversion field, through an open door. They had only used enough force to destroy the doorway area, damaging the plant was unthinkable.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why is damaging the plant unthinkable?" Jane seemed genuinely confused, despite the briefings she had had and the additional study entered into.

"Because it converts matter into its equivalent energy, at 20 megatons per kilogram of mass, because any damage to the apparatus, or just not shutting down properly, caused the field to not collapse right, and swallow an unpredictable amount of surrounding matter before hand, and where the energy then generated will be released is any ones guess."

The blonde was puzzled, Jane knew this, Chloe had personally been briefed on it BY the demon, not the other way around.

"Because the field generates its power by converting air blown through it with a fan, but will convert anything touching it, possibly overloading the safeties and destroying the device while sending a humungous amount of power to wherever it is being used. In this case Israel, and the energy release would be equal to more than the worlds nuclear weapons stockpile, plus the energy equivalent of whatever went into the field."

"Miss Sullivan, I believe an error of interpretation has occurred…"

The power plant building, Smallville, 12:51 Armageddon day

The demon fighters were finally in the room with the power plant, and what to do now was the crucial question. Willow was here, trying to remember the shut down procedure, after all she was not part of the design team, she had been on the basic theory end. When the dangers of improper shutdown had been suggested by one of the physics team, it had been investigated, but purely as a theoretical problem. The device had only been run twice, she had not been present either time, so, with the demons gathering for a counter attack, more arriving from somewhere after the highway patrol roadblock had been overrun, none of those present knew how to turn it off without creating an explosion at least ten times larger than the largest thermonuclear device ever tested. The blue disk of the conversion field shimmered prettily, evilly. Chloe ran in from the street, looking around desperately.

"Miss Sullivan, could you find out how to shut it off safely?" Giles asked, with the sound of demons chanting their war cry rising in the background.

"No, Yes, well kinda…" The high school girl stammered. The wall started tearing apart, the demons had decided that going in through the door channelled them into the guns too much and were making a bigger hole. The demon fighters, almost out of ammunition, looked nervously at the crumbling wall. "There is no safe way to shut it down, but one of the unsafe ways is not unsafe for us."

"WELL WHAT IS IT?" The normally polite Englishman had watched his children killed and maimed today, and now the fate of his species was at stake. Xander was standing with the stump of his arm wrapped in bloody bandages, sword in his remaining hand, Willow was too exhausted from her magic use to think properly, Dawn was staring straight ahead into infinity, `the thousand yard stare' common to combat fatigue cases, and an injured werewolf had accidentally bitten him. He wanted it over.

"If we overload the safeties by running something big into it, at least 70 kilograms is the latest calculation, it self destructs and the energy won't go to Israel, because that is not where it's being used."

"Then were is it being used?" Willow asked in a tired voice. She was physically and emotionally exhausted, from magic use this day.

"Hell." The newspaper editor said, as the demons broke the rear wall and shooting started. They had little time.

"What's 70 kilograms in American?" Xander asked quietly. He was looking at the field; it started several feet above the ground, too high for a heavy object to be rolled into before the bad guys overran their position here.

"154 pounds." Lex answered from the street entrance, he did international business and needed to be comfortable with metrics. With the evacuation over he had come to join the fight here, he had a satchel of full magazines, which he passed around, giving everyone a full mag to insert and a spare with whatever was left from the previous fighting. "And that's the last of the ammo until the convoy comes back from the safe house. Call it half an hour."

"Well, we're screwed." Dawn commented, not really pessimistic in tone, not anything in tone, exhaustion and seeing Buffy's regurgitated remains had taken away her emotions.

"No we're not." Xander was smiling now; clearly he had figured it out, how to save the day. The demons were nearly through the wall, time was short.

"Why not?" Willow asked.

"Because I weigh 220 pounds." The construction manager said, as he ran at the field. He could see the demons break through the wall and run to the machine, he could barely make it. A brief sprint and a flying leap, the blue disk was beautiful as he entered it headfirst.

Hell, the gateway to Earth, the same time

All the demons of Hell were massed here, waiting in their uncounted millions to pour through. The rest was deserted, since the Evil One had made clear what would be done to any who failed him in his ultimate moment. So when Alexander Lavelle Harris's 220 Pounds, plus the 180 of the power device, were converted into over 7,000 megatons, and fed directly to the demonic sorcerers who had opened the gate from this end, there were no survivors. It was an explosion equivalent to 360,00 Hiroshima size atomic bombs, after all.

Armageddon, Israel, same time

The gateway vanished like it had never been there. His Evilness was receiving direct hits from some of the few remaining Alien ships, which had been ordered to make sure he died before beginning colonisation. Given that the aliens had not changed ship design in long enough for some vessels to have been found embedded in rock formations a lack of imagination and creativity in tactical situation should not have been surprising. They had worked their way through the priority list, beginning with Barney, the purple dinosaur, now it was Satan's turn.

Smallville, a few minutes later.

The demons had just stopped. After Xander went into the field, and the machine vanished into its own total energy conversion pipeline, they fought on for a while, and then just stopped. No one yet knew it was the Evil One's submission that had ended it.

Giles had watched the man he thought of as a son hit the blue disk, and then everything went dark as he was coated in a fine, wet, mist. He took off his glasses to clean them, and realised it was a red coating covering the whole room and everyone in it. Enough to account for 40 pounds of Xander, as he was later to see it calculated. Not all of Xander had been converted to energy, the safeties had failed and the device had consumed itself with enough left to be converted into a purée. The world, this entire plane of reality, had been saved. Willow had realised what she was covered in too, and was sitting sobbing on the ground when Faith's jeep came up to her. The dark slayer listened to her beloved's explanation is silence, patting and hugging her wife.

"Willow."

"Yes Faith?" She had finally stopped sobbing hysterically, she was crying but had some level of control back.

"Can we name our next child Xander?"

The place formerly known as Hell, Six months later

With the evil one gone no-one was coming here for punishment, so the place had been just going to waste. The damned had been moved on, or stayed on to help rebuild. The Foreman looked around at his most demanding but rewarding project, from the garden of wildflowers where the gateway to Earth had been. The sulphur smell was finally gone, and a blue sky was slowly appearing. It would all be ready when the survivors of the Scooby Gang left the mortal plane.

Xander Harris was dead, but he was still in the construction business.

END