Refrain from Despair

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/SMT Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha (Casts Shadows)
Summary: The Duchess' army encounters Spike's army.  Battle ensues.
Word Count: 1243
Rating: Teen

 

         Raidou, perhaps in a show of ego, had started to think that, perhaps, their efforts were useful after all, and they had been cleaning up the streets. It should not have come as a surprise to determine that he had, in point of fact, been wrong, because they get in sight of the Halloween costume shop when everything goes wrong at once. It does not, however, come as a surprise that someone may have been thinking something about the whole thing being too easy, after all. That someone may have even been him, though he’s not quite sure on the matter.
         “Going somewhere, your Highness?” a mocking voice calls out, and from around the side of a building comes a rather formidable ambush in the form of a handsome vampire with an actual opposing army. And even if some of them might be originally human, it might be rather difficult in the fray to be able to target securely.
         “It’s your Grace, thank you,” the Duchess fires back, holding out her hand for her sword. Angel doesn’t seem to want to give it to her, which, yes, on the one hand perhaps her skills are not quite what they used to be, but on the other, it’s probably for the better for her to be armed than not.
         The easiest way out of this would be a Wind Order demon to securely fly them to the other side, while the Duchess’ army holds the army off. Once the costumes have all been reversed, in theory that should cut both armies down to a manageable size, even if that might mean Xander isn’t useful anymore. Of course, the gaping hole in this plan is that he doesn’t have a Wind Order demon and has no time to acquire one, even if it hadn’t been for the time constraints of being in the middle of battle, and a quick glance says none of these demons look like they’re the sort he’s familiar with, so he can’t even try confinement or negotiation, here.
         “The noblewoman and Angel are mine. Kill the rest,” Blondie orders, and with that, the limited order they’d managed to impose devolves into chaos once more. That sparks some kind of memory, but he can’t quite put his finger on it and doesn’t have the time to be thinking about this anyway.
         Another useful demon would’ve been a large one, like the Tarrasque or Tsuchigumo, to carry them above. He’d been lax on recruiting. He really should’ve been more proactive to ensure that he really did have the demons he needed ahead of time.
         Somewhere off in the fray he hears a distant “Cowabunga!” that makes him smile. The smile quickly disappears when he spots another fiend—is that Hell Rider—but for now it seems like the knight of Hell is on their side, so it’s better not to let that distract him in the first place. He might as well squeeze off a few warning shots to keep enemies at bay as he tries to work out a strategy. Žiburinis is having the time of his existence setting things on fire.
         “Guns aren’t useful against demons!” Giles yells, and that hasn’t been true in Raidou’s admittedly short experience, but he has been taught about demons with some resistance to bullets.
         “That just means I need to get creative!” he yells back, and aims, because an inkling of a plan is coming to him. Even if a demon has regenerative capabilities, it’ll take time, and buying time is all they need. For example, Blondie stumbles and falls with his Achilles’ tendon severed, and even demonic (or vampiric, in this case) determination to move is no match for sheer physics. He’ll be right as rain the second his injury heals, but in the meantime, his ability to chase will be impeded.
         And it doesn’t help that it’s chaos. They hadn’t had time to train together, to form a true army that can spot and cover each other’s weaknesses effortlessly, but the same is true of the opposing army. It’d be easy to lose track of Her Grace in this, if only she wasn’t wearing her dress, which stands out—
         Wait. No, that’s just it. What if she didn’t stand out? Oh, that’s just perfect.
         “Storm! I need fog, now!” he calls out, and it’s just as good as a smoke bomb to obscure the area. Perfect.
         “Your Grace! I’ll need some strands of your hair!” He’s already recalling Žiburinis frantically, pulling out the first tube with shaking hands. “Nix, come forth!”
         “Will these do?” Duchess Buffy asks mildly, appearing next to him much faster than she should be able to trying to move in that dress.
         “Ready as ever, Raidou,” Nix promises as he appears. It’s a good thing he’s more experienced; a fresh demon might just start casting spells and wasting Mag the second they saw an enemy, but Nix instead waits patiently, knowing his Summoner has something else in mind given that he’s been summoned essentially mid-combat.
         “That’ll do just nicely, Your Grace, thank you.” He bows a little, handing the hair over to the waiting Nix. “Don’t worry about saving your power for anything else. Just keep using Transform.”
         “I daresay that is inspired,” Giles breathes, having apparently figured out what he’s thinking despite the slight differences in how any of this works.
         “Praise me after it works.” Superman seems amused when he flies down and picks up Duchess-Angel. Makes sense; it’s probably for the best that they send one of the fakes over first.
         “Shoot them down!” Blondie orders, pointing, and it’s then that one of the Duchess-Jedi goes charging out through the fray, followed closely by Willow. “...That’s cheating!”
         He’s no fool, and yes it absolutely is, but like hell is it on him to play fair with these odds.
         “Pretty sure you can get the hang of this,” a Green Lantern tells the actual Duchess, handing over the ring, and with a whoop she’s soon airborne, dress turning green, which does serve as a pretty good ‘I’m clearly not the real Duchess’ confusion tactic.
         Duchess-Giles looks very concerned about everything when the Hulk picks him up and goes bounding through the battlefield, but he doesn’t have time to say much more than ‘oh dear’. Again.
         “Is it the time?” Nix asks hopefully, as Raidou feels the usual uniform transform into a floofy dress, which, yeah, he’s got absolutely no idea how to move or fight in, so he kind of needs to be carried. It turns out, as he’d kind of expected, that while using a demon’s talents for investigation normally requires little to no effort, spamming it like this does actually deplete some of his already low Magnetite. It’d been worth it, though.
         “Yeah.” He barely has to say the word before Nix is transforming into a really handsome horse. He pats the flank. “Rescue me, oh noble steed, I’m a Duchess in distress.”
         He gets the distinct feeling Nix is laughing at him, but his demon obediently kneels and lets him mount, galloping off the minute he thinks Xander’s grip on his mane is secure enough. It turns out it’s not, and he’s nearly dragged off once before Nix freezes the ogre with what is probably the last of his Mag, and he gives up on dignity or anything else and just throws himself forward and hugs onto the galloping demon’s neck for sheer life.