Title: Apokalupsis

Author: Erykah Miszti

Timeline: Post-Not Fade Away.

Summary: This is the legacy of Buffy's plan and Angel's apocalypse.

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Prologue

a·poc·a·lypse: from Greek apokalupsis, revelation,

1. The imminent destruction of the world and the salvation of the righteous.

2. Great or total devastation.

3. A prophetic disclosure; a revelation.

"From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Who can stand up, will stand up. Every one of you, and girls we've never known, and generations to come... they will have strength they never dreamed of, and more than that, they will have each other. Slayers. Every one of us." - Buffy, Chosen

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Pain. White and hot. Screaming. It might be his own but he can't tell. The world is falling apart around him. Earthquakes rip the ground. Lightening rips the heavens apart. Thunder rolls and booms, deafening and ominous.

"We must leave now." A cold voice tells him.

"No!" He cries desperately, struggling against the iron fists that drag him away. The others…

"They're gone." The flat voice states – did he say it out loud or are they now so close that they can read each others minds? - and the light and noise fades from the world, leaving only absolute, infinite silence.

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Chapter One: Discovery

It was the end of an age, although granted it didn't entirely look like it was. The sun was still beaming down on the urban sprawl and tall glass skyscrapers of central Los Angeles. The traffic was still inching along the freeways. The smog still lingered in the valley between the mountains. Planes still landed every few minutes at the airport.

When viewed from high above, LA still looked the same as it had before but these appearances were wrong because everything was very different.

Xander Harris grabbed a case from the baggage carousel and dumped it on the trolley held by Marina. The trolley skidded as she hadn't really been paying attention to holding it steady. Xander sent her a look – his one good eye flashing with irritation - but found that she still wasn't paying attention. She was scanning the baggage collection area warily with her sharp eyes. Her body was tensed and ready for action.

Marina was 23 years old; a tall, curvaceous brunette with irritatingly perfect skin and a fondness for black leather trousers. Marina was also a vampire slayer, which made everything else seem to make sense.

"Trouble?" Xander asked her, aware that her slayer senses were more highly attuned to danger than his merely human ones.

"This city reeks of trouble." She replied in clipped English tones. "Something very bad has happened here." Her eyes were haunted. Her gifts extended beyond the normal Slayer ones.

"In the airport?" Xander asked cautiously.

"Everywhere." She shuddered and Xander resisted the urge to do the same.

Marina had always freaked him out. This strange slayer was also a witch but, unlike his best friend Willow, she had no cute charm to soften the face she showed to the world. She was flat out weird and creepy and she seemed to like it that way. He'd tried to get Giles to pair him up with someone – anyone – else but the Watcher had been insistent. Marina's gift for seeing what had happened in places in the past would prove useful on their mission. Of course, Xander hadn't actually wanted to take the mission either. Going looking for Angel and his little Fang Gang hadn't been top of his priorities list anytime this century but Giles had been insistent on that too. Willow and Kennedy were needed in Australia. Faith and Wood were needed in Cleveland. Buffy and Dawn were handling Europe. Giles could have sent Andrew but he didn't trust him enough in this situation. This needed someone who could handle the dark hole in the world that was LA right now. He was only half convinced that he was the one for the job.

"Come on." Xander said to Marina, drawing the trolley away from her grasp. As he led the way out of the baggage hall and into the terminal, Xander pretended not to notice that he was the only man visible for as far as the eye could see. Instinctively he moved closer to Marina, his bodyguard.

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It was shaping up to be another balmy night in Los Angeles but, now that darkness had fallen over its environs, the streets were suddenly empty. No cars moved on the freeway. No planes lit the sky with little flashing red dots. Lights blazed from every window but nobody walked the streets. The entire city was awake but it could have been a ghost town. No one slept. No one made too much noise. Mothers shushed their children's crying when it became more than a whisper in the night. Houses were boarded up from the inside; chained & padlocked. Makeshift weapons were piled within easy reach.

This had never been safest time of day for a human to be out in this city but to be on the streets now was just plain stupidity.

Xander Harris trudged down the deserted road, with Marina at his side, cursing the name of Rupert Giles. Things were bad in the other places he'd visited – in England, in Italy - but you at least still saw people living their lives after sunset. People were cautious but they weren't so terrified that they abandoned their towns and cities for the evening.

"And why are we wandering the streets again?" He asked the Vampire Slayer.

"You could have stayed in the hotel if you're scared." She told him distractedly.

"I'm not scared." He lied. The eerie silence of the city terrified him. "I'm just questioning the sense of wandering around out here. We should have gone to the Wolfram and Hart building tomorrow morning."

"That's not where we'll find the answer to all this." She stated mysteriously, her eyes constantly scanning the area for trouble.

"How can you be so sure?" He asked even though he wasn't really sure he wanted to know.

The sound of feminine heels tapping on concrete was like a dagger in the silence. Marina turned to him and put her finger to her lips to shush him. Xander sighed inwardly.

"Slayers!" He muttered under his breath and Marina shot him an evil look before returning her attention to tracing the source of the sound.

Some way up ahead of them a young brunette appeared out of a side street. She was pretty, incredibly slight and look terribly alone. She looked like perfect prey for the beasties of the night. On cue, almost inevitably, one appeared. A really ugly, brutishly muscular vampire in game face stepped out in front of her. Marina tensed for action, then scooted into the shadows. Xander followed her automatically.

"Hey babe." The vampire began. "What you doing out here in the middle of the night?"

"I'm looking for Vincent." The young woman replied in a trembling falsetto.

"Vincent, huh? What business would a little human girl have with Vincent?"

He moved closer to her and ran a hand down her face. Marina, followed by Xander, crept nearer blending with the shadows.

"That's between me and him." The young woman stated, she sounded scared but defiant and determind.

"Okay, I'll take you to him but let's just have a little taste first. I'm sure he wont mind." He grabbed her by the throat and lowered his fangs to her neck.

Marina pounced, a stake suddenly in her hand, knocking the vampire back off the girl. They struggled violently.

Xander grabbed the girl's hand and tried to pull her away to safety but she turned on him and the beautiful, delicate face stared back at him like a cold mask with dead eyes.

"I don't need your help." She stated, her voice incredibly icy. Xander physically stepped back in shock at the change in the woman. "Your Vampire Slayer will get us all killed."

"What!" Xander demanded but got no further as the night came alive, in a manner of speaking. Vampires appeared from everywhere. "Oh fuck.." He started and reached into his jacket for his knife and stake.

The young woman spun around and punched one of the vampires. He flew into the air and back 20 feet or so. Xander's eye went wide but he had no time to question as the fight was on him. To his left he could see Marina fighting off wave after wave, to his right the young woman was doing to same. He briefly wondered if she was a Slayer too but he didn't have much time to think about it. He attacked the vamps with everything he had in him.

From behind him he heard a roar of fire and half turned away from his immediate fight to see one of the vampires go up in flames. A black clad figure had joined the fray and he seemed to be on their side. He fought silhouetted in the light, his face obscured. Punching, kicking, spinning, dusting vamps left, right and centre, the man made short work of a good number of the creatures before they decided to cut their losses and ran off into the night. When he was sure they'd gone, the man stormed across to the young woman without turning to face Xander. She was kneeling on the asphalt.

"What the bloody hell did you think you were doing heading off without me..?" The man demanded in a very familiar voice with a marked British accent.

"Spike!" Xander exclaimed and the man span on his heels to face him.

"Oh hell!" Spike irritation was very obvious as he recognised Xander. "What are you doing here?"

"You're alive!" Xander replied stupidly. Spike smirked.

"Not technically." His mouth twisted bitterly.

Xander stared at Spike, struggling to take it all in. The jeans and T-shirt were the same, all black. The long leather coat was the same but look very much worse for wear, unbelievably scuffed in some places. The platinium blonde hair was gone, a buzz cut was in its place and the remaining short hair was dark. A thin scar was visible in sharp relief across his throat.It could have been a trick of the dim light but he looked distinctly older. He was certainly leaner and looked like he hadn't slept in weeks… and he was standing right there in front of him!

"She's dead." The young woman cut in bluntly.

Xander tore his attention from the resurrected Spike to the body the woman was kneeling beside. Marina lay there not moving, blood still oozing from the gash in her chest where her own stake had been turned on her.

"Oh no." He said wearily, he never got used to losing people.

"Who was she?" Spike asked, his voice a little softer now.

"A vampire slayer." Xander replied sadly. "Giles sent us here to find out what happened to Angel."

He looked back at Spike, unable to conceal his amazement at seeing him – and, if he was honest with himself, fighting down a bitterness that Spike was standing there while Anya was still dead – despite knowing that Marina deserved someone to mourn her at least just for this moment. Spike eyes flashed but then he pursed his lips and looked away.

"Angel is gone." The young woman replied in that awful flat tone of hers. "They're all gone, apart from Spike..." She inclined her head in a gesture that looked like a twitch. "..and me."

"What did you guys do!" Xander demanded harshly, pain and bitterness came out in his voice. All the horrors he'd seen in the past few months couldn't be contained and he decided to dump the blame on Spike and Angel just because there was nowhere else he could think of putting it. Besides, old habits died hard.

Spike turned away and stuck in his hands firmly in his coat pockets. For a long moment he said nothing but then he sighed deeply.

"Angel fucked up." He replied softly. "We fucked up." He amended. "We broke everything." His shoulders shook slightly as if he was trying not to cry but his voice trembled, betraying him. "And I don't know how to fix it."