(no subject)

[sunnydalealum]

It's not worth the effort, at this point, to make herself firmly visible.

Instead, Meg concentrates on making her voice as loud and solid and present as possible as she zips through the building, ignoring such petty obstacles as walls and floors and extremely surprised lawyers and mentally checking off sites of battle: "All out! Everybody out!" she shouts to Wells and Spoon, and "They're coming down, get ready!" to Buffy and the others in the lobby, and "We're all done, it's time to go!" to River and Spike, and "Find the others, get out now!" to Harth and Mel, and then back to the first group again, as fast as she can.

Everyone has to hear.

Comments

[river_meimei]

River half-reaches for the first doorknob, and then spins away without touching it. Her eyes are narrowed, intent and fierce.

Setting her back to the wood instead, she fires: eleven shots (guns roaring in overlapping thunder, and the cries and gurgles of the ones who die with bullets in face and throat and spine) and then a twelfth, and then her fingers blurring to reload, reload fast before she has to grab for her sword again instead and that's soon--

Her head snaps up and she jerks sideways, but it's River who gasps this time, at the sudden meaty thud and the wickedly barbed arrow protruding from her bicep.

[bloodandnicotine]

Spike curses under his nonexistent breath. The spear blurs in his hands, the blade wounding the two closest attackers and the butt striking a third's horned skull with an appalling crack.

It's enough to give them a few seconds' respite, and he takes it.

"Hold still, pet --" He reaches for the arrowhead protruding from the exit wound, to snap the shaft below the barb.

[river_meimei]

River swings round, small face sharp and lethal, and the gun in her unwounded hand blurs upwards--

And jerks sideways, as she catchers herself with a gasp and a swaying stagger that has nothing to do with pain or bloodloss, and the loud crack of another shot overlaps with the scream of a snaggle-fanged demon.

Her right hand tightens around the grip of the gun she's still holding, tightens and almost immediately loosens again as fresh blood wells around the arrow shaft.

[bloodandnicotine]

He makes it quick as he can: the shaft snaps between his fingers and it's done. And all right, yes, she very nearly shot him just now, but she didn't -- and she's still firing with her other hand, and he takes a split second to admire that.

And then he spins and hurls the arrowhead with vicious force.

Spike's got a few scratches on his fingers from the barbs. The clever bugger with the crossbow's got an arrowhead in his right eye. Fair trade, he's inclined to think.

[river_meimei]

The door at their back is as good as a wall. River doesn't reach for the doorknob again.

She's too busy trying to keep the covering fire going, one-handed, enough to make up for the fact that they have next to no actual cover.

[bloodandnicotine]

Well, it's a corridor. They tend to be short on things that would obstruct clear passage. The door, though ...

Spike backs toward it, tries the knob with one hand. Locked. Course it is. Not a reinforced lock, though, and that means --

The doorframe splinters slightly with the force of his tug, and the lock breaks, and he grins. He doesn't need to open the door all the way to know, to feel, what's on the other side of it; you can tell when it works.

[river_meimei]

"Time to go," River whispers, under the crack of wood and the shouts and screams of battle.
The hard part
She doesn't move for an instant; a heartbeat. Her head is up, her small face pale and bloody and full of a lethal glittering intensity.
is putting the gun down
And then, "Time to go," she mutters again, sucking in a sharp breath, and it sounds as if she's talking to herself more than anyone. She darts backward, through the doorway Spike's holding open, and into the infinitely quieter bustle of Milliways.