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Slam!

That sound jolted everyone out of their seats. For a moment there was confusion, bleary-eyed sleepers came up back into consciousness, confused as to what had wakened them.

Slam!

Buffy leapt to her feet, Alec and Willow with her.

“Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?” Buffy asked.

“Sounds like something wants in!” Spike called out, coming up to join the others.

“We’re thirty thousand feet up!” Alec cried out.

“Maybe it’s a bird?” Willow put forth timidly.

Slam! Suddenly dents appeared in the metal of the airplane door.

“I don’t want to meet the bird that can dent the door of a jetliner,” Alec replied, “I thought they were extinct!”

Angel appeared from out of nowhere and grabbed the shoulders of the flight attendant who was just staring slack-jawed at all the chaos.

“Get everyone strapped in back there and find a way to close us off from the rest of the cabin.”

“But…but how? There’s nothing separating coach and first class but this!” she cried out and lamely held up a thin curtain.

SLAM!

“That’s not gonna do it,” Xander commented mildly. By now, everyone had assembled together.

“Coming through,” Faith called out, lugging one of the drink carts behind her.

“Uh, babe, I appreciate a good drink as much as anyone but is now really the time?” Spike commented.

“Spike is passing up a drink. That’s it, we’re all dead,” Giles commented deadpan.

“Get everyone back into coach,” Faith instructed. The stewardess, baffled, obeyed, taking the few remaining passengers in first class with her back into the rear of the plane. Faith then proceeded to lift up the cart and wedged it on its end in the narrow passageway. Tiny bottles of booze smashed in a shower of alcohol and tinkling glass.

“That’ll work,” Buffy commented with approval.

Suddenly there was an ear-splitting squeal of tortured metal and a loud whoosh as the door came free of the plane and inside became sheer pandemonium. Magazines, glasses, and luggage were ripped free and sucked out spiraling into the black sky.

“‘Nothing to worry about’ you said. ‘Safest way to travel you said’,” Alec growled at his sister.

“Oh….SHUT UP!” Buffy snarled back.

And then some…thing filled the doorway.

“What….the….hell?” Faith gaped.

The creature had huge feathery wings in a rainbow of colors. It was humanoid in shape, but it was covered in a multitude of iridescent black scales. It had huge, yellow claws and a snake-like head with a mane that looked like it was made out of the same feathers as was on the wings with a row of feathers running down its back like spikes tapering off upon a tightly coiled tail. It hissed at them and dug in its massive claws into the plane leaving huge rents in the steel.

“He’s going to tear the plane apart!” Xander cried out, gripping Anya frantically and trying to avoid being sucked out of the plane, much as the others were.

“The hell he is!” Spike called out wielding what appeared to be the food cart that had escaped being made into a barricade, “What’ll it be mate: chicken or fish?”

The winged creature hissed at him again and even as it attempted to enter the cabin, Spike let out a whoop and charged, turning the cart into a battering ram. They slammed into the creature hard, it cried out in rage and tumbled backwards out of the cabin, the cart propelling itself outwards into the night.

Spike grinned, satisfied, even as he worked to get solid footing against the shrieking, black vortex.

“Well, that was fu-“

That was as far as he got before the creature’s tail coiled around his ankle and dragged him down and out into the night.

“SPIKE!!!!!!” Buffy cried out hysterically. Only the cold howling of the night wind answered her.

“Not today, brother,” Alec commented. Painstakingly he made his way to the door. Buffy caught his arm. Alec turned to look down at her.

“I’m going in!” he called out.

“You’re coming back out!” she replied.

Alec grinned and nodded.

“Count on it,” he said with a grin. He tossed her his shades, “Hold these!”

And then, he jumped out of the plane.

Buffy had to stop herself from leaping after him, digging her hands hard into the metal of the doorframe as the wind whipped her blond hair around.

“I hate it when he does that,” Buffy growled.

Suddenly the entire plane jerked violently. Everyone staggered and eyed the open door warily.

“Wills! Shut the door, there’s a draft!” Buffy cried out.

Willow nodded and turned her attention.

“Xander, hang on to me, I need my hands free for this!”

Xander nodded and crawled over to her, soldier-style, and wrapped both his arms around her waist.

“Got you Wills!”

Willow looked down and smiled for a second then gasped.

“Xander, you’ve got me! Who’s got you!?”

Xander turned back to look and gaped, in coming out to help Willow, he’d given up his own secure footing.

“Oh shi-!” Xander cried out as he looked back at the open door. The pair of them were dragged forward just an inch before they came to a bone-crunching stop. Xander jerked his head back around.

Angel had his leg in a death grip and was hanging onto it with all the strength a vampire could manage.

“You’re solid Harris, help out Willow,” he said brusquely.

Xander smirked just a little, “Good timing, dead boy,” he turned his attention back to the witch, “Do your thing!”

Willow nodded and brought her hands up.

“Goddess Hecate, hear my plea. Work wind, work water, work air. I weave my will and weave a wall.”

She finished and waited. Suddenly the temperature in the cabin, already quite cold, dropped even further. Everyone’s breath began to steam as a small swirling maelstrom of blue and white light formed near the door. The air became arid, dry and hard to breathe as the maelstrom expanded. Where it touched metal, an immense groaning, cracking sound emitted forth. Within a span of heartbeats, a solid block of ice filled up the doorway. The sudden quiet inside the cabinet was deafening.

“Will that hold?” Giles asked, gently releasing Dawn from his grip.

“I think so,” Willow replied, wishing she could sound more certain.

.”Beats what we had before,” Faith commented, “Nice work Red.”

“Thanks.”

Without warning, the plane jerked and shuddered again.

“Okay, what’s the deal, who’s flying this thing?” Xander cried out.

“Good question,” Buffy replied, “Faith, if you’ll do the honors?”

“Do we knock?” Willow asked meekly.

“Do we care?” Faith replied easily and with a grunt she knocked the door down. The pilot, co-pilot, and navigator were all there to be found.

At least, what was left of them.

It was clear that whatever had attacked them back in first class had started at the cockpit. There were large holes in the ceiling and along the side, not large enough to cause the complete loss of pressure the cabin had suffered but enough for clawed hands to make it through to the people inside.

“Oh...I hate this,” Buffy commented direly.

“There’s no one flying the plane?” Anya asked agog.

“That would be what all the dead pilots here would be about, yeah,” Faith commented.

“You think it would cause panic if we asked if anyone on the plane knows how to fly one?” Willow asked.

“If they aren’t already IN a panic, they clearly haven’t been paying attention to recent events,” Buffy replied glumly. She turned to look at Angel, “Angel, you were in the war, did you ever…?”

“Yes, but flying a P-40 Warhawk is a little different than flying a jumbo jet,” Angel replied.

Willow whirled around on Xander, “Xander! You know how to fly a plan!”

Xander stared at her, stunned, “What are you talking about?!”

“Flight simulator! Back when we were kids, you played that game for hours on end. You must have put in, like, five hundred hours or so into it.”

“Wills, that’s a video game! That’s like saying I know kung fu ‘cause I played ‘Street Fighter’!”

“Well, I figure that plus your ability to handle big machines, like the RV, makes you our best bet,” Willow looked around, “Besides I don’t think anyone else has a better idea.”

“’Taking the train next time’ springs to mind,” Giles commented dryly.

“We are going to die,” Xander said quietly, but he turned his attention to the pilots chair. Unfortunately, it was currently occupied with the mutilated corpse of the pilot.

“Uh, guys, I really don’t think-“

Growling in frustration, Faith stalked over the corpse and with a sharp shove, deposited the body onto the floor like so much meat.

“Sit down. Fly the plane and save all our lives,” she commanded simply.

“Right, no problem,” Xander gulped before gingerly lowering himself into the seat. There was a long, protracted squishing sound as he did and he felt something saturate the bottom of his pants.

“Oh…I have no words for this,” Xander said trembling, doing his best to not look at the little rivulets of blood that had been squeezed out of the seat like water from a sponge.

He gently put his hands on the control column of the aircraft, it was sticky with blood and he did his best to ignore that. He had to wipe flecks of…stuff off the cockpit dashboard so he could read them.

“Okay, uh, fuel is good, oil pressure looks okay, ummm….we appear to be more or less level,” Xander rambled on as Buffy leaned over to Willow.

“Just how good at this video game WAS he?” she asked worriedly.

Willow chose her words carefully. “Well, like I said, he played it a ton and it was very realistic.”

“And out of all those times he played it, how many times did he successfully land?”

“Ummm….a couple, for certain…..I think.”

“Oh,” Buffy said mildly, “We’re all going to die.”

“Alec…” Dawn spoke up casting a look behind in dread.

Buffy sent her a sympathetic look, “Yeah, I know. We can look forward to killing him when he gets back.”

“Get in line,” Willow said through gritted teeth.



Cold wind buffeted Alec’s face as he plunged through the night. The experience was oddly liberating.

Remember, its not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.

Wind brought stinging tears to his eyes as he tried to peer about the night sky for his friend.

“Shouldn’t be too hard, just look for the lunatic who’s brawling with a ten-foot monster while plunging at terminal velocity,” he commented darkly and then he sighed, “And let us not forget his idiot friend who is chasing after him.”

There. A little bit ways off beneath him, he could almost hear….

“Come on you bloody poof! Is that all you’ve got?!”

Yup. Found him.

He focused, summoning his sword, and suddenly his hand was filled with steel. Now armed, he streaked towards the pair like a guided missile.

Spike had time to register surprise for a moment before Alec plowed into both of them. The creature hissed and snarled. It couldn’t disentangle itself from the lunatic that had somehow managed to grapple it all this way and now a second one had manifested and the three of them now clawed and spit at each other as they continued to plunge down through the night.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Spike screamed.

“Well, you know you made it look like so much fun!” Alec called out.

“Arse!”

“Idiot! Grab my coat. I’m going to get us out of here!”

“What about peaches here?”

“You two have played enough!” Alec winced as the creature dug a claw through his leg but fortunately couldn’t penetrate enough to gain any kind of purchase. Alec struck the beast with his sword again and again, slicing scales free and severing the connective tissue of the wings. The creature wailed and raged as blood welled up from numerous wounds.

Finally Alec maneuvered himself to the creature’s back.

“Here, hold this!” Alec called out. For a moment, Spike thought he meant himself, only to find that Alec was addressing the creature for he plunged his blade deep into the beast’s back. It screeched in agony. Reaching down, Alec got a solid grip on the bloody tissue that held the beast’s wings to its body.

“And now we PULL!” Alec strained and growled, even as the beast spun back and forth rotating and diving trying to do something, anything, to get this insane monster of its back. Ultimately that proved to be fatal as the creature’s thrashing gave Alec the additional force he needed. With a wet, tearing sound, the beast’s wings came completely free and fluttered off into the night.

The creature got in one last, long wail of agony and then plunged into the night, now without even the slightest impediment against gravity. It disappeared from sight.



“You mentioned leaving?” Spike called out.

“Right, good plan. Close your eyes.”

“If you say ‘Click your heels three times’, I will personally find a way to strangle you before we hit,” Spike yelled to be heard over the wind.

Alec grinned for a moment, then the expression was wiped from his face when he got a good look at his surroundings.

Wow, that ground’s coming up awfully fast was his last thought.

And then there was no more time for thought.

Alec closed his eyes and focused…





“How are we doing? Buffy asked Xander who was still seated at the controls.

Xander didn’t take his eyes off the instruments or the view in front of him, “The flying part is relatively easy, it’s pretty much just go in a straight line. The crew had the course set before they….uh, well you know,”

Buffy nodded, “What about landing?”

Xander winced, “That’s going to take a little bit more doing.”

“Something to look forward to,” she turned to Angel, “How are the passengers?”

“Frightened but for the moment, we’re the only ones who know that the crew is all dead,” he replied, “I suggest keeping it that way.”

“With you on that,” Buffy replied.

Abruptly there was a burst of static from one of the headsets, followed by rapid fire Spanish.

“Okay, what’s that?” Buffy asked.

“That’s probably from the control tower wanting an update,” Xander replied, “Either that or it’s the local radio station, I have no idea.”

“Well, what are they saying?”

“Again, file that under ‘I have no idea.’”

“Oh for…” Anya grumbled and then shoved her way past the others, “Move!”

The others, confused, got out of her way as she nonchalantly pushed the corpse of the navigator off the seat and plunked down into it, ignoring the blood and gore. She gingerly picked up the headset, wiped it off and put it on her head. And then she proceeded to speak in fluid Spanish, going through a series of question and answers with whoever was on the other end.

“Okay, that IS the control tower, they’re telling us that they’ve been alerted to the cabin depressurization and they want a status update, they also want an explanation as to why we’re only flying at half our expected speed,” Anya informed them. Then she got a good look at the others expressions of surprise.

“What? I’m over eleven-hundred years old; you think I can’t pick up Spanish?”

“You told me you flunked Spanish,:” Xander said.

“Not Spanish: math. God, you never listen. See, this is why-“

“Ahn, so not the time,” Xander cut her off, “Tell them, I dunno, tell them whatever you think they’ll believe so we can land this thing,” then he added as an after thought, “Just run it past Buffy first,” he added, remembering how his beloved could be somewhat…tactless at times.

“Fine,” Anya grumbled as she turned her attention back to the radio.

Buffy turned to Willow, “Any sign of…?”

Willow just shook her head, she was sitting with Dawn and the pair of them looked absolutely despondent.

“He’ll be here,” Willow replied with determination.

“Absolutely,” Buffy replied with confidence that she didn’t really feel. But it was better than dealing with that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and the awful truth it represented.

“Any sign of who?” a voice called out.

Everyone (who wasn’t involved in the operation of a jumbo jet) whipped their heads around to see Alec and Spike stagger out of a dark corner and collapse onto the floor.

“Alec!” Willow cried out, leaping into his arms. Alec held her tight and kissed her head Dawn was not far behind her as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly.

“Miss me Slay-?” Spike was interrupted by Buffy as she devoured his mouth with hers in a fiery kiss. It stretched on forever and then she quickly broke it off and slapped him across the face.

“You. Be more careful,” she growled.

Spike chuckled, rubbing his cheek, “Yes ma’am.”

Buffy shifted her glare to her brother, “Goes double for you.”

Alec held up his hands, “No argument there. Next time I go skydiving, parachute is mandatory.”

“Son, how did you survive?” Giles asked quietly, his voice shook only a little. His son’s reckless act had terrified him, but he had done his best to keep his composure.

“I shadow-stepped my way back up to the plane,” he held up his hands flat and then stacked one on top of another, over and over again, “Once after another until we made it back in here.”

“That sounds exceedingly dangerous: a single teleportation has been known to be very draining and risky for you, several in a row…”

“Seemed less of a bad idea than hitting the ground,” Alec countered.

“I’ll second that,” Spike put in, “Damn eerie experience though.”

Alec nodded, “Home sweet Hell, the plane of elemental darkness can be like that.”

“Remind me to never attend any housewarming parties you ever host, better safe than sorry.”

Suddenly there was a small beeping sound that filled the cockpit quickly.

“That can’t be good,” Willow put forth, “Xander?”

“It’s nothing coming from me,”

“It’s coming from your watch, Buffy,” Angel pointed out quietly.

Buffy started and then looked down; sure enough, the digital readout read six-thirty.

Sunrise in thirty minutes.

Buffy jerked her head up, “Guys, we got sunrise on its way fast,”

“Oh fantastic, I thought the plan was to have landed BEFORE the sun became an issue,” Spike growled.

“That was before we had to cut our airspeed in half because something ATE the flight crew,” Xander shot back.

“Okay, okay, let’s not have a hiss-fit,” Buffy said placating, “Where can we put you guys that’s out of the sun?”

“Cargo hold, with the luggage,” Angel said quietly.

“With the luggage?! We go from first class to luggage?!” Spike exclaimed.

“Would you rather go from ‘first class’ to ‘ash tray’?”

Spike muttered but didn’t argue the point further.

“Okay then, you guys get down to the cargo hold. Is there a way to get to it from inside the plane?”

“If there isn’t, I’ll make one,” Angel replied.

“Sounds like a plan. Faith, go with them, something tells me that their act of radical reconstruction might need some slayer muscle behind it,” Buffy added.

Faith grinned, “Man these guys are going to have one humongous repair bill for this thing. I’m on it,” With that, the three of them headed towards the back.

Buffy turned her attention back to the view in front of her and to Xander.

“What now?”

“Now, we make a gradual descent through the cloud cover and proceed to have a smooth and orderly landing,” Xander replied.

“Uh huh and in the land of reality?”

“We pray to our great and fuzzy gods that we don’t explode in a ball of flame or crash like a stone.”

“Got it.”

Slowly, with agonizing care, Xander gently leaned the yoke forward and the plane began its final descent.





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