Title: "By the Pale Moonlight Pt. 1"
Author: Rebecca Bradstreet
Rated: PG-13
Archive: Sure.
Summary: Megan wakes up in the ruins of Dr. Salome Wright's lab.
Warning: Darkness, and death.
Disclaimer/Notes: I don't own Riley, Angel or any of the other Buffy/Angel characters in this story. I do own Megan Lloyd. This is my own little AU. *eg* I am using // as thoughts, and ** as emphasis. It's not beta'd so all mistakes are my own. ;)
Special thanks to: BW for giving Dr. Wright her first name.
"By the Pale Moonlight Pt. 1"
Rebecca Bradstreet (c) 2000Megan woke slowly. She could feel bits of the building lying on top of her. //Only bits of the building, I'd feel safer under a ton of rubble.//
She was lying in a hallway of Dr. Salome Wright's underground lab. Megan had come with Angel to try and rescue the Slayer. She'd owed the vampire the favor, and she *liked* him. Megan liked Cordelia. She even liked Wesley...well...well enough to work with him. Megan and Angel had been captured. The last she'd seen of Angel, and undoubtedly the last he'd seen of her he'd been disappearing under a wave of demon and human soldiers. Instead of saving the Slayer they'd been captured and added to Dr. Wright's collection of "guests". That was before all Hell broke loose.
The blast had ripped through the lab. It had knocked Megan unconscious, and covered her in rubble. She'd felt it...eating at her before she slipped into unconsciousness. The blast had been made of more than science it'd been made of magic as well. Megan climbed out of the rubble the blast had covered her with, and brushed herself off. The magic in the blast had eaten at the spells that kept her alive. Once more the old spells had held. Her escorts had been killed. Their bodies were blackened, and looking at them she knew somehow their anatomy was no longer quite right.
//Cat in woman and woman in cat -- I know I use to think this a curse, but it was centuries ago, and tonight I'm very grateful.// Megan thanked the old shaman, and the powers he'd called on when he cast his spells. Though the electricity was gone in the lab, the emergency lighting still held. She could see clearly. She had to decide what to do next. The sensible part of her wanted to get the Hell out. No telling what else had survived the blast, and was now loose without the good doctor's supervision. The curious part of her wanted to go further into the ruins, and look for other survivors.
//You really think there are any other survivors kitty cat?// Megan asked the cat part of herself. She knew the voice that answered wasn't Cat, but it was the deciding vote.
//Can you leave not knowing who you may be abandoning?// Her conscience was the reason the long dead shaman had cursed her with forever instead of a swift death.
//All right.// Megan told herself taking a shallow breath of the dust clouded air and following her nose down the hall.
For a while she found nothing but dead or dying. Megan couldn't help the dead, and the dying she could only help on their way. The magics laid on her gave her no gift to heal anyone besides herself. They did give her the strength to kill those things that might once have been human, but lay in the halls twitching and burbling through too many mouths. When Megan was beginning to give up hope, she found the first cell whose steel door had held against the blast. She studied it. It had been warped by the heat and the magic, but it had held. The only way by the door was through it.
//Kick it in, or try and pull it out of it's damaged frame?// Megan could kick it in with the strength the old spells gave her human form. To pull it out she'd need the size and strength of her werecat form. She wasn't sure she had the strength to change her shape. The blast had weakened her. Megan had to get into the room. Its contents had become a mystery the cat in her had to have answered. She tried to change her shape, and became the great two footed womancat of her werecat form. Then very carefully she wrested the door from its frame. It was a good thing she'd avoided kicking the door in. There was someone alive on the other side.
//He's still breathing, unconscious not dead, and he seems human. Quite the surprise.// The door set aside, Megan shifted back to her human form, and went to free his still form from the examining table it was strapped down on. He was tall and blond wearing the remains of a commando uniform. Closer to him, taking in the smell of him through the dust, Megan revised her opinion of just how human he was.
//Did Dr. Wright alter you human, or did someone else do it first?// She wondered as she managed to remove the last strap. His breathing was even but so slow Megan worried he might be hurt or drugged.
"Wake up, wake up. The doctor is gone, and her building is crumbling around us," she whispered stroking his arms.
"Buffy," he moaned from behind closed eyes his voice full of heartache. Megan knew Salome had shown him the Slayer's severed head.
She's gone, but we live. Look at me...please?" She knew if he was hurt and heartbroken he could choose to slip out of life.
"Riley," he offered her as he opened his blue eyes to the darkness and the dust.
"Megan," she told him, guessing Riley was his name. She helped him sit up as he tried to focus on her in the dust clouded emergency lighting.
"Are you okay?" Riley asked her as he managed to focus on her grey-green eyes.
"Well enough for the moment. Are you hurt?" Megan didn't ask if he was drugged, or offer him some sop for his heartache.
"No, not much, I have to...," he couldn't finish, having to focus his energy on swinging his legs down to the floor.
"You have to take it slow. You're hurt, and you've been strapped to this examining table. If there are any other survivors down here we'll find them, but not by breaking our necks." She put one of his arms around her shoulders helping him to stand.
"Thanks." Riley smiled weakly, and Megan wondered if the thanks was for helping him to stand, or for promising to help him search the building.
"You're welcome. Let's try getting out of this room one step at a time." She was quickly reminded that even in human form her eye sight was better suited to the lighting than a human's. When he fell Riley scowled, but made no more than a grunt.
//Salome where ever did you find him?// Megan thought, as she decided to try and use her full strength to hold them up. Well what was left of her full strength, even a shadow of it might be enough to scare him. It didn't matter. It would be better than the bruises and scrapes he was collecting.
"Are you a vampire?" Riley asked as he felt her tighten her grip on him. Megan nearly let go of him in her shock.
"No, I'm no vampire!" She protested as she fought to keep her own suddenly disturbed footing. Riley held on tight to her, and between the two of them, neither fell over with Megan's shock.
"You see very well in this light, and you're so strong. I had to ask." He sighed tiredly, wondering what she actually was, and if she was about to abandon him in the dark.
"I'm...a...a shapeshifter, what you might call a werecat." Megan told him, trying to give him an explanation without giving him her life story.
"A werecat?" Riley repeated softly.
"Yes. I can shapeshift at will between human, werecat, and cougar. In every form I'm strong, have a cat's hearing, their sense of smell, and their night vision. I also have my intelligence, and sense of...self in each form. I'm told my cougar form has lovely red-brown fur, and human eyes. I'm hoping we'll get out of this compound without your having to see my cougar form." She said it all very calmly. Megan hoped he was close enough to see the concern in her eyes.
"It would be nice to get out of here without a fight." Riley agreed with a warm smile.
They started moving once more. He asked from time to time what she saw with her cat sensitive eyes. Riley could hear some of the dying, and smell too many of the dead. Megan told him some of what she could see, and prayed he couldn't see the rest. They found lots of dead and dying in their exploring. Megan began to fear Riley would be the only living thing she would find in the compound, but then she found another steel door that still stood. She wondered, as she stared at it, if the steel doors that had held against the blast had been magically reinforced.
"I can remove the door, but...to do it safely I'll...I'll have to *try* to shapeshift." She explained to Riley.
"Try?" His voice was both worried and surprised.
"The blast that gutted this place it...it was magical and it's tired me. Each time I shapeshift I use energy. I'm not sure how many more times I'll be able to do it without some rest." Megan's words were tired, but not defeated.
"Can I help?" Riley asked, not even sure how he might.
"You can stand back and pray," She suggested. He swallowed hard, and nodded. Megan let go of him, stepped forward, and transformed once more into her werecat form. The door gave just as the previous one had. The sight on the other side of this one was different.
//Cold Iron chains on that little redhead? I wonder what sorts of things she can do.// Megan thought studying the young redhead chained to the wall.
"Is there anyone in there?" Riley asked her from behind. She shifted back to her human form before she answered him.
"Yes. Come, and see for yourself." Megan held out her hand to him.
As he leaned on her once more, and they moved close enough to the young woman for Riley to see her, he said, "Willow!"
The young woman stirred, "Riley?"
"Willow we have to get you down from there." He told Willow as he tried to undo the chains himself.
"Here let me do that," Megan told him, taking the chains off Willow with careful application of her inhuman strength.
Megan and Riley had to find their balance once again as Willow leaned against them.
"Giles, Xander, any of the others?" Riley asked Willow.
Willow shrugged, "I don't know. I don't know where Tara is."
"You're the second human I've found down here," Megan said without thinking.
"Human? Are you a vampire?!" Willow asked, shifting closer to Riley, and nearly knocking them all down.
"She isn't Willow. She's a werecat. It's okay." Riley flashed his most reassuring smile at first Willow then Megan.
Megan was tempted to ask why everyone's first thought was vampire, but she knew she'd come to the dance with one. //I wonder if Angel is in here somewhere. And if so if he's amongst the...the true dead.//
"We're searching the complex for survivors. So far we've a grand total of three." Megan knew she sounded bitter, but Riley had seen enough of the dead now to share her feelings. Willow hadn't yet, but she would.
If Megan's and Riley's progress had been slow, Megan's, Riley's, and Willow's was a crawl. Three sets of feet were depending on Megan's eye's to guide them, and two sets of feet leaned on her third. Riley seemed to be recovering slowly as they walked, but he still fell too easily. He was definitely hurt. Megan wondered just *what* was wrong with him. Willow too grew more steady and alert as they walked, but the progress her physical health made was set back by the shocks the dead and the dying gave her mental health. It was plain she'd never seen such wholesale death.
"I can't...I can't," Willow gasped as she ground to a shivering stop. Riley hugged her while Megan closed the eyes of yet another dead. Willow was grey and shivering. Megan knew the girl was going into shock. //I can't blame her. I bet even to humans the smell in here is enough to overwhelm without the sight and the sound.//
Megan turned from the dead to Willow and Riley. Not for the first time in her long life, she wished she had powers she could touch others with besides her physical strength.
"Just a little farther, Willow -- just a little more strength. What if Giles or Tara are trapped down here behind a steel door we haven't opened yet?" Megan tried not to think of the equal question, "What if their charred remains are lying somewhere between here and the exit."
"How...how did you get here? Why are you down here?" Willow asked Megan through her chattering teeth.
"I came with a friend named Angel. He said the Slayer needed our help." Megan didn't know if Angel would mean anything to them. She was sure mentioning the Slayer would hurt Riley, but she didn't know what else to say.
"Angel?" Riley and Willow asked in unison. Megan guessed from their tones they knew him.
"Yes, he helped me once. I owed him, and besides he lets me count him as a friend. If he's died down here..." Megan didn't finish the thought aloud for them. If Angel was dead in the blast there would be no remains to find.
"He did come! He came, and he brought help." Willow said it to Riley fiercely, and Megan wondered what she was missing.
"He only brought me. He told Cordelia and Wesley to stay behind." It was a small comfort to Megan. She and Angel had walked straight into the lion's den, but they hadn't brought others with them.
"We can keep looking," Willow said it softly and encouragingly. Megan guessed whatever Angel was to them they respected her desire to find him.
They continued their search through the ruins. Megan, Willow, and Riley found only one more steel door that had held. Riley quietly explained to Willow what Megan would do as Megan stepped away from them to change her form. She removed the weakened steel door in her werecat form. They didn't have to ask her if there was anyone behind it. Megan surged forward a deep growl rumbling from her throat. They'd found Angel, and he wasn't dead. Salome had nailed him to the wall with spikes. Megan savagely began ripping each one out of the wall and Angel's flesh.
"You're scaring them," Angel whispered for Megan's ears alone. It startled her enough to halt her growling.
"I'm scaring them?! You don't think Salome's treatment of you is bothering them?" Megan whispered back with equal softness. She knew if he could hear and see he could do it just as well as her.
"Salome isn't *right here* a large angry werecat *is*," Angel told her patiently.
"I'm sorry," Megan said loudly enough for Riley and Willow to hear.
"Better," Angel grunted as Megan pulled the last spike free and he fell into her arms.
She shifted back to her human form. If her flair of temper in werecat form had scared Riley and Willow, it didn't stop them from coming to help her and Angel find their balance.