Authors Notes: Darn, posted this in a rush at school and forgot to do all the fine tuning. Stupid stupid me. Sorry!

Ok, Buffy set after Series 5, but Buffy didn't die. Buffy uber evil takes the form of its minion Caleb. Anya and Tara aren't around. Spike gets his soul in between seasons 5 and 6 instead 'cause Buffy doesn't die and rejects him.

Treize is a little bit psycho in this. I'm aware that origional Trieze wouldn't be involved in these kinds of evil scemes.

Oh and a massive thanks to Jessie for proof reading and to her and Cat for helping me write the prophecy.

Onwards!


Chapter 1

Many things could be considered bad omens, earthquakes, floods, draughts, swarms of locusts and plagues are all accepted as signs of an impending apocalypse. On a smaller scale, traffic lights on red all the way to work, road works, coffee spilt on your white shirt and a broken elevator, are all accepted as signs of the day ahead being a bad one. Your average person doesn't get overly concerned when nothing bad is happening; in fact they would consider this to be the ideal state of affairs and wouldn't really question it. Rupert Giles was not your average person and therefore the fact that nothing was happening was of great concern to him. He'd been living on the hell mouth for several years now, the hell mouth was a place where bad things happened. Everything that happened there was a bad thing. Nothing good happens just a few meters above the entrance to hell, past experience had taught him this; past experience had also taught him that when things were quiet, it was inevitable that something unspeakably bad and evil was stirring. It was inevitably a sign that soon they would be involved in yet another life threatening, poorly planned (in his opinion anyway) attempt at saving the world from imminent destruction.

Giles sipped his tea, letting his eyes wander over the pages of the old book in his hands, not really reading it as he knew its contents practically by heart, a fascinating description of the history of the forming of the Watchers Council, he really should get Buffy to read it at some point, and as he pretended to read, he mused on the possible causes of the suspicious calm that had descended on Sunnydale. There were of course several obvious options, some Lord of the Vampires come to do battle with the ultimate Vampire Slayer, a supreme evil demon rising from hell to take over the world, a sect of evil monks dabbling in dark magic beyond their control, perhaps even a God with a particular grudge against humanity, all were possible. Yet, none of these really appealed to Giles. A Vampire Lord would have lead to restless vampires, a demon would have had the same effect, the effect of monks would have been immediate and Gods were rarely subtle.

"Vampire kill, definitely." Buffy's cheerful tone interrupted his musings as she bounced through the door to the Magic Box accompanied by the sound of the bell, "No question."

"Will she be coming back?" he asked, barely interested, watching her settle at the round table in the centre of the room.

"Nah, blood was all gone. She's definitely dead. Nothing special."

Giles frowned; he'd almost hoped that the discovery of the body of a young girl would have lead them to something slightly more interesting than a standard vampire kill, a ritual killing perhaps or even some kind of interesting demon.

"God Giles, I never thought you enjoyed saving the world so much."

"It's not a trivial matter Buffy, you know as well as I do that when things are quiet its almost always an indication of bad things to come." Typically, just as Giles was starting out on a lecture/series talk of some kind, the members of the gang most likely to disrupt his serious talk and cause him great annoyance arrived.

"Uh-oh, Giles is using serious voice, what did you do Buffy?" Xander, the supreme king of disruption asked cheekily as he joined Buffy at the table, smiling broadly and giving the distinct impression that he knew exactly how much that question would irritate Giles. Some people thought he genuinely didn't realise how stupid and annoying some of the things he said were, but his closest and oldest friend Willow knew better, Xander was a lot smarter than he acted and as always it made her smile as she quietly slid into the seat next to him, eyes fixed on Giles face to enjoy the effects Xanders entrance had had.

"Giles thinks I'm not taking the suspicious calm seriously enough," was Buffys flippant response, almost causing Giles to roll his eyes.

"Sometimes I really wonder how we've survived this far with such a carefree attitude. It must be dumb luck." Giles was worried and therefore was not in the mood to be teased; at times like this he was prone to snapping and growling, so no one really paid much attention to him.

"Giles has a point," Willow, the eternal peacemaker decided to step in, "Quiet normally leads to bad stuff."

Xander opened his mouth to comment on that, but was helpfully interrupted by the door swinging open and the youngest member of the Scooby gang almost falling into the shop, staggering under the weight of an enormous cardboard box, so instead he opted for an innocent question. "What's in the box Dawny?"

"I don't know. The delivery man asked me to take it in." she replied, dropping it heavily onto the table, forcing all those sitting round it to jump back as it shook violently.

Giles brightened visibly at the sight of the box, "My books."

"Books?" Willows ears pricked up with excitement.

"Books?" Xander's voice held far less enthusiasm.

"Books? Yay, its not like you've got enough, big, old, boring books." Buffy's bitterness appeared to be born from years of Giles attempting to force her to read just such books.

Giles simply glared, "These are very important books," he explained patiently, "From a very significant collection held in a library in Egypt. This box contains some of the earliest written records of many mythologies, from all over the world. Its really quite fascinating."

There were many amused glances traded as Giles started to open the box with an enraptured expression on his face as though the content of the box was more precious to him than anything else in the world. Just as he pulled the top layer of tissue wrapping off the books, Dawn's hand snuck under his guard and extracted a hefty volume, which sprayed dust, and scraps of paper everywhere as she opened it at its centre, "There aren't even any cool pictures!"

"Do you mind!" Giles growled, outraged, snatching the book back and clutching it to his chest protectively, "This is one of the most valuable books you will ever see, I will not have you treating it with such disrespect!"

"Sorry."

Giles simply glared in response, lifting the box and moving it to the shop counter out of reach of any more grabby hands. Smiling sympathetically at him, Willow stood, "Come on guys, we got places to be and Giles wants to be alone with his books."

Giles almost sighed with relief as they departed. He enjoyed their company, of course he did and he loved them all dearly, however, he did not appreciate it when people persisted in not taking him seriously and the abuse of his books always put him in a bad mood, so he was justified in being glad to see the back of them. He turned the book in his hands over a few times to check for damage and was very glad to see it seemed to be unscathed. It was one of the books he had been most looking forward to getting; it was a collection of prophecies, compiled by a Babylonian philosopher shortly before the fall of Babylon. Giles had always been fascinated by prophecies, they almost always came true but often not in the way they were expected to, that was interesting in itself but his main interest lay in why some prophecies were accurate and some weren't. One person could create several prophecies, but not all of them would ever come into being and that was fascinating.

He would dearly have loved to start reading it straight away, but the care of his books was far more important, so he controlled his longing and set about unpacking the other books in the box. It would be a few hours before he allowed himself to sit down and begin reading.


Hunter was surprised. Just as the bizarre messenger had told him, an envelope containing a set of directions dropped through his door exactly three days after their encounter. He suspected the same messenger had delivered it, as there had been no sign of whoever had pushed it through the letterbox when he'd yanked the door open hoping to get some more details.

Muttering angrily to himself, he slammed the door shut, ripped open the envelope and pulled out a sheet of heavy, yellowed paper, it was either very old or hand made he decided before reading the writing.

It told him in easy to follow, concise language how to get to a remote location a long way from the small town where he was living. This prompted further angry muttering, but without further hesitation Hunter set out.

He was familiar with the phrase curiosity killed the cat and was seriously hoping that it would not apply to his curiosity on this particular occasion. There was a very great possibility that this was a trap of some kind and that by going to this place he was going to his destruction and that worried him more than he liked to admit. He had faith in his ability to defend himself, but that faith was no longer quite as total as it once had been, the near miss when his Grandson had tried to destroy him was still relatively fresh in his mind and he was now more aware than ever that he was not indestructible, he could be killed.

These worries circled round his head throughout the entire journey, which lasted well over six hours, and by the time he arrived in the area of sparse woodland he'd been directed to he was thoroughly sick of them. He was almost glad when he spotted the familiar form of the messenger lounging against a tree, eyes lazily scanning the forest for anyone approaching. A crooked smile slipped onto Hunter's face, his legs bent slightly, his entire body seemed to shrink slightly, and carefully he slid in-between the trees approaching in complete silence.

The messenger didn't know Hunter was there until he found himself pinned against the tree he'd been leaning on with two cold, white hands wrapped around his throat rapidly applying more pressure than was strictly comfortable. Hunter smiled wickedly, extremely pleased to have control, revelling in the knowledge that he could end this beings life in seconds, the feeling of power that knowledge gave was intoxicating. "Now…" he began, but just as he started to form questions in his mind, the neck vanished from between his hands, as did the rest of the man. Hunter stared at his hands for a moment, bewildered, then spun as he heard an amused chuckle issue from behind him.

"I'm not that easy to pin down." There was obvious pleasure in the man's voice, he clearly relished the surprise painted all over Hunter's face.

The surprise turned quickly to anger and Hunter lunged forwards, no longer concerned with the meeting, just wanting to solve the mystery of the man's sudden disappearances once and for all. His hands again closed on thin air and the momentum of his lunge almost had him falling to the floor.

"Yon won't catch me." Again, the man had instantaneously appeared behind Hunter, arms folded and smirking.

"What are you? How are you doing that?" Hunters pride was screaming in pain as it came crashing down and Hunter had to admit temporary defeat, at least until he had this mystery all figured out.

"What a rude question." the man was not about to give in that easily, he was enjoying this far too much, "I'm a half-demon. Evanidus to be precise, that's teleporting to the uneducated."

"A half-demon?" Hunter asked, now confused, he'd never even heard of such a thing.

"Yes, half-demon, fathers a demon, mothers human." his tone was now patronizing, as though he was addressing a very small child, "Honestly, a vampire that hasn't heard of half-demons, wouldn't believe it if it wasn't standing right in front of me."

Hunter glared, he was not amused by this situation, he'd always thought of demons as myths, and he'd never heard the term half-demon before not even in myths. It had been a long time since there had been something Hunter didn't know, human related things being the exception, and he was shaken by it. "So where is this meeting?" He demanded, not being able to think of a suitable response to the messenger's statement.

Yawning, the man stepped into the centre of the small clearing just a few feet away, beckoning Hunter to follow him. Despite being reluctant to step into the unknown again, Hunter followed; right now he really just wanted this whole bizarre experience to be over. For a few moments they stood in silence, then out of nowhere brown rings flew up out of the floor surrounding them, stacking one above the other till he could only see the forest through the narrow gaps between them, almost in the same moment it vanished, replaced by a dazzling bluish white light, which vanished just seconds later and he was standing in a small round chamber, clearly underground as it had rough stone walls.

"Follow me." the messenger barely gave Hunter time to get his bearings before striding out of the chamber through a narrow doorway which lead onto a broad, dark, cold passage way. It sloped down, Hunter noted, meaning they were going even further underground with every step, not good for a quick escape, especially as he didn't have a clue how to activate the strange rings to take him back to the surface. He was getting a bad feeling about this.

The passage went on for quite a long way, but as they walked it became lighter, though Hunter couldn't identify the light source and after around three minutes they entered a much larger stone chamber. Large wasn't quite the right word, it wasn't particularly wide, or very long, but the walls stretched up and up above his head vanishing into a glowing shimmering sheet of…. something…which seemed to be the source of the light. In the chamber, there was a large oval table, surrounded by many chairs, all of which were occupied, bar two, the one nearest the passage and the one at the head of the table on the opposite side to where Hunter stood.

The person who would clearly be sitting there was standing next to the chair, he was very young, not more than 17 or 18 years old, tall, well muscled with glossy black hair almost down to his shoulders and a fringe that fell into his eyes. He was simply dressed, dark trousers and t-shirt, but his lower right arm and hand were encased in a strange, intricate gold device.

"Thank you Xavier. They're all here now." He spoke in a voice that was not human. It was forced, echoed and rhasped, it didn't appear to be produced by the body it was coming from. It didn't fit, it wasn't natural, and it made Hunter shiver. "Mr Redfern, take a seat and we can introduce everyone."

All eyes were fixed on Hunter, he didn't object and took his time to sit down as the messenger called Xavier left the room, he wanted to make it clear to everyone that he was not going to be controlled by anyone here. He was here because he wanted to be and he could leave whenever he wanted, he was above these people.

The boy with the strange voice didn't sit down; he looked around the room, a cruel smile making his pleasure clear, "Welcome. You've all been brought here because you all have one thing in common; you are the most evil, despicable individuals this world has to offer." Slowly he stepped away from his chair, making as if to walk around the table, but stopping behind the first chair in which sat a man in his 30's, dressed as a priest with neat brown hair and a chillingly calm smile on his face, "The first evil, the thing which first took the name evil for itself, for millennia its wrecked havoc through countless dimensions. In this incarnation, we may call it Caleb."

Caleb nodded in acknowledgment as the boy continued his walk, pausing behind the second chair, this one was a younger man, mid-twenties at the oldest, his dark blonde hair combed mostly back from his face and his ice blue eyes roaming the room "Treize Kushrenada, our most recent earth wide leader, who seized control with almost no right, causing the deaths of thousands."

Treize laughed slightly at the description, the boy moved on, the next man was far more striking than the two before him and with a far more inhuman air. If he'd been standing up he would have been unnaturally tall, with silver hair, so long it rested on his knees, his eyes were a swirling mix of colours, never settling on a single one, he gave off a definite air of insanity. "The inorganic Angel Rosiel, most powerful of all angels, his actions almost led to the destruction of the earth."

Rosiel's smile was pure evil, "Lets hope this time my actions will help us succeed." Hunters mind was reeling slightly, Angel? Angel's didn't exist and weren't they supposed to be all goodness and light? But the boy was moving on, ignoring the slight mutterings around him to make his next introduction, this man a complete opposite to the striking one next to him. Short blonde hair, brown eyes wearing a suit that made him look like a completely ordinary businessman, "Guy Boyd, CEO of the Boyd Sorcerer Cabal and here representing the united Cabals. The Cabals have been involved in underhand and illegal business since such things existed."

"A pleasure." Guy said coolly, clearly not at all intimidated by being told that he was sitting next to an angel. Now the boy had reached the chair just one away from Hunter, the occupant of this seat also appeared to be no more than 18 years old with light brown hair and eyes, he looked completely unthreatening, Hunter was more than a little curious to hear what qualified him to be there, "Light Yagami. Kira. The infamous Japanese mass murderer from many years ago, striving to create a new world, defeated by death but only for a short time."

Then it was Hunters turn, he tensed, not at all sure what was going to be said about him and that was not a desirable situation, "Hunter Redfern," the strange voice so close behind him was a little unsettling, "Head of the Redfern family of vampires, controller of the Night World council through which he attempted to remove humans from this earth by bringing about an apocalypse."

Hunter was pleased with that description; it was respectful enough and gave a good enough impression of his aims and achievements. He felt that now he could sit back, relax and listen to the rest of the introductions, no longer needing to worry about "fitting in."

On his right, where the boy now stood, there sat by far the physically oldest person present at the meeting, well into his thirties with blonde hair and glistening silver eyes, he had quite a regal air, "Dr Kazutaka Muraki, a skilled sorcerer and brutal murderer, the after life would be far emptier if it wasn't for his efforts."

"You're too kind." Dr Muraki's voice proved suitably chilling; anyone who heard that voice whispering in their ear would know their time was up.

Next came a heavily built man, long dark hair and eyes that were a pure black were a startling contrast to his painfully white skin, Hunter half suspected that this was another vampire, "Dracula. I don't think more introduction is necessary."

Dracula? Yet another myth sprung up from the floor, it appeared Hunter was going to have to seriously re-evaluate his knowledge of the world. He'd always thought Dracula was the product of human hysteria, refusing to believe there was a race of blood drinkers they attributed all the crimes to one imaginary figure. Obviously, he'd been wrong.

The next to be introduced didn't break from the trend for startling appearance that was appearing around the table. Very short white blonde hair and piercing blue eyes formed an almost clichéd bad boy appearance, but he radiated real power so Hunter was willing to forgive it, "Klaus. One of the original vampires, his constant energy has significantly boosted the population of vampires all over the world and the brutality of his vendettas is famous."

This was just getting ridiculous, Hunter thought tiredly, there were no original vampires, there was only his family line, and that definitely didn't contain anyone called Klaus. Of course he could be one of the first made vampires but then he would have been familiar to Hunter and part of the night world and he'd never even heard the phrase the originals before. Hunter did not like feeling ignorant and that was exactly what he was feeling at the moment. He wanted to believe that these people were lying and weren't who they said they were, but if that was the case they would have run screaming at the strangeness of it all.

The strange boy had little regard for Hunter's musings and moved on at exactly the same speed. The next to be introduced was another youngish man with soft blonde hair, green eyes and a pleasant smile that was definitely out of place in the present company. "Tohma Seguchi, for his whole life he has been using his power and influence to get him exactly what he wants, whenever he wants and by any means necessary, that is what he'll help us to do."

When Hunter's eyes slid onto the final person to be introduced, he felt a fear so profound, so total that he almost thought he would never again feel confidence. It confused him, because it was definitely the least threatening figure in the room, again, no more than 17 years old, not particularly tall or well built but perfectly proportioned with the most handsome face Hunter had ever seen, dark brown hair fell messily over his forehead, slightly obscuring eyes such a pale blue they were almost white, Hunter was transfixed, both by the boys beauty and the waves of power and darkness that he was suddenly throwing out, "Nidhogg, Dread Biter, Tearer of Corpses, Malice striker, the dragon who feeds on the tree of life. Nidhogg has gone beyond the need for definition. It is beyond gender, it is neither feminine, nor masculine. Instead, its nature is so incomprehensible, so chaotic, that it is simply beyond any such definition. He is the thing that created evil."

Hunter was certain that almost every person in the room squirmed in their seat, suddenly feeling unworthy of being there despite their impressive credentials and suffering under the bombardment of Nidhogg's total power. As quickly as it came, it went and there was an audible sigh of relief around the room, Nidhogg sniggered, but so quietly Hunter thought he might have imagined it.

"And I," the boy who'd summoned them all said, with an amused smile as he took his seat at the head of the table, "Am Ash. I am a Goa'uld; I am from the race that once enslaved this planet, many hundreds of years ago we once again did battle with warriors from here. At that time I was in service with one of the greatest Goa'uld System Lords, Lord Set. He was defeated by your warriors and has become trapped in the afterlife. I have called you here so that we may raise him and then bask in the glory of his revenge as we take this world for our own and make its people suffer!"

Well, that really wasn't what Hunter had expected him to say.


Giles was in heaven, metaphorically speaking of course, sitting in his house with a cup of tea, listening to some good classic rock and reading his new book, what could be more perfect? The book was what he'd expected and more, meticulously compiled, and in order of when they were supposed to come true with a small note on the original context, just marvellous.

He'd had almost an hour's good fun already, working out which of the prophecies had already come true, as they weren't generally terribly serious prophecies this hadn't been at all depressing, and was now turning to the pages for this year to see what had been predicted for this year. His smile faded around halfway down the page when he saw a prophecy that departed from the lighthearted theme of the book.

When the sun sets on the reign of mankind,

Brought by the legions of darkness led by the serpent which is not of this earth,

When those who drink of the fluid of life become strange and unfamiliar,

So comes the fight that signals the endless night,

The ranks of the dead shall rise led by the dragon that feeds on the tree of life,

All is lost unless those who are most loved by God join with those who loved God the most.

Yes, that was definitely not pleasant and if this one was going to come true then they were most certainly in trouble. He sighed, his fun really didn't last very long these days, and wearily he read the context of the prophecy and groaned. It appeared that the philosopher who'd made this particular prophecy had a near perfect record when it came to his ancient predictions, though he rarely made any about the very distant future, this was one of the few and so far the others (which had predicted all three world wars) had come true. Drat. Bollocks. Bugger. Giles allowed himself a few choice words of frustration as he picked up the phone and called the gang to meet him at the Magic Box as soon as possible.


"Ranks of the dead? Dragons? Legions of Darkness? Endless night? This does not sound good!" Xander exclaimed loudly in a tone that was almost flippant, but tinged with real concern, "And its solutions not really helpful either. Most loved by God, loved God the most, what the hell's that all about?"

They were grouped around the table in the Magic Box, closed on Sundays since Anya had departed for greener pastures and wasn't forcing Giles to open up at every available opportunity. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Dawn having just listened to Giles explanation as to why they'd been dragged away from their leisurely Sunday afternoon.

"That, as they say, is the question." Giles replied gravely, "I'm relatively sure that 'those who drink of the fluid of life' refers to vampires, but I'm not sure how they could become strange. The tree of life comes from Norse mythology, which I'm extremely rusty on. Legions of darkness could refer to a number of things."

"Aren't we getting a bit carried away?" Buffy asked, with a half laugh, "I mean this is a prophecy right? They're not big on accuracy are they? This might never happen, how do we know it's meant to happen now anyway?"

"We know it's meant to happen now because that's what the prophet said and frankly his other prophecies have been far too good for us to ignore it, that would not be wise."

"Giles there haven't been any signs! If the world was about to be attacked we'd know something about it, the vampires and demons would be full of it!"

"She has a point Giles," Willow put in, "If its this big there'd be something and there hasn't been anything."

"Precisely. The calm before the storm, we have to at least look into it."

Buffy sighed theatrically, "Fine. I'll go out tonight, see what the word in the bars is, ask Spike."

Giles groaned at the thought of bringing Spike back into their circle, after the encounter with Glory just months previously he'd been relatively distant from the gang for which he'd been hugely grateful. He wasn't going to be petty and bitter, he could acknowledge that Spike was useful in a fight, sometimes he was even an asset to their team on rare occasions, but it just wasn't right to be a team fighting evil and have a murderous vampire tagging along with them, it didn't fit. It wasn't healthy either, to have him so involved with Buffy, he was attracted to her, that much was clear and what with her ideals preventing her killing him now that he had a soul he wasn't at all keen on the two of them being alone together. However, he was fully aware that she wasn't going to listen to him on the subject, so the only way of making sure things didn't go badly was to allow him back into the gang.

"Be careful with Spike."

"Giles I can take him, I'm the slayer remember," and Buffy was gone to get prepared for her patrol and to try and figure out where Spike might be hiding.

"For once Giles, I agree with you. You should not hang around with evil things that want to suck your blood." Xander's indignation on this point was by now so familiar it barely registered with anyone.

"Bye guys!" and Buffy was as always very skilled at completely ignoring everyone's advice.


Hunter was confused, annoyed and having a sudden moment of feeling deeply inferior, something which had not happened for a long time and this was causing him to stay resolutely quiet as the others argued around him.

He got the feeling that no one present actually objected to the plan, they were just annoyed that they weren't in charge and he strongly suspected that several were having the same inferior feelings as he was. The most vocal, surprisingly, was the strange man who'd been introduced as an ex-world leader. His main argument appeared to be that taking over the world was a waste of time and a gross over reaction to what had actually happened. Echoing his concerns were both the Cabal leader and the out of place smiley blonde man, both of whom seemed uncertain of how exactly they would benefit from this. The other objections mostly revolved around the fact that they didn't need to rule the world, just destroy it, this came mainly from the people who didn't depend on the earths existence for survival.

Ash did not appear at all concerned by the arguing and sat in his chair, leaning back leisurely and watching them in an indulgent manner. Slightly more disconcerting was the dragon, who was chuckling to himself, trading glances with Ash every now and again which caused even more laughter from both of them. Hunter was suddenly painfully aware of how his victims felt when they heard him laugh.

Lazily, the dragon rose to his feet, silence fell instantly, all eyes turned to him, "Gentleman," his voice was unusually deep for such a pretty young boy, a reminder that this was most definitely not its natural form, "You can argue about this, forever, it won't bring you anything. You all know that you'll end up agreeing to help Ash, so let's just hurry things along and agree so we can get started. I woke up from a very nice nap to be here so please, let's just get on with it."

Well, when someone whose names include Tearer of Corpses and Dread Biter tells you to do something, you do it. No one spoke, the dragon sat back down again, Ash stood.

"So, anyone who wishes to leave may go now. For the rest of us…we need to get some sacrifices to raise Lord Set."


Characters that are introduced and where they come from!

Giles, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike, Dawn and Caleb-all from Buffy(obviously)

Ash-Stargate

Treize Kushrenada-Gundam Wing

Dracula-this will be the kind of Dracula that appears in Blade, rather than the preety lame Dracula that turned up in Buffy

Rosiel-Angel Sanctuary

Light Yagami-Death note

Guy Boyd and the Cabals- Kelley Armstrong

Dr Kazutaka Muraki-Descendents of Darkness

Klaus-Vampire Diaries

Tohma Seguchi-Gravitation

Nidhogg-Ok, technically he's a norse dragon but he's going to be one of the dragons from the Night World books.

As always, review and tell me what you think!