See Chapter One for disclaimer and details. Welcome to the latest chapter, everyone, and wow! I wasn't expecting that many reviews for the previous instalment of the story, thank you very much to everyone who sent in feedback of some sort. Please, keep those reviews comin'! Now, just to let you all know, I'm going to be doing some world-building in the next few chapters, I can't just skip ahead to the time of the five-year reunion. BUT I'm only going to be touching lightly on all the events of the Buffy- and Angel-verse through to 2004, only what I need to set up the main plot in later chapters. Everything I mention up until then is there for a reason! Trust me...if you dare...


Chapter Three: Alternate Paths

Winters residence, Los Angeles

September 29th, 1999

Ever since Cordelia Chase had left Sunnydale, her life had gotten much worse instead of much better, like she'd expected for it to do.

Instead of a condo in Malibu, she'd been forced to live in a roach-filled leaky apartment in the projects of LA. Instead of a glamorous rise to the top of Hollywood's elite, she'd gone to one or two auditions for TV commercials that had led precisely nowhere. Instead of getting rich quick about the only asset she'd had left was Xander's Prom dress, which she had worn to a party in the Hollywood hills last night; an informal gathering hosted by a woman named Margo.

It was there she'd run into a familiar male face – someone she knew from Sunnydale.

"Timmy?" Cordy had said in astonishment last night, as her cousin Timothy Chase had materialized out of the crowd. "What, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, of course. And don't call me 'Timmy', will you? I'm not eight years old anymore!" Tim had then grabbed her by the arm and steered his female cousin away from the crowd – thus causing Cordelia to miss out on meeting Angel.

Much to the chagrin of a rogue Power That Be – a higher power which had quickly started to make alternate plans in order to descend from the higher realms, and take over the mortal world one day.

Cordelia had subsequently confessed everything to Tim, who had later decided that she was going to move in with him straightaway – one look at the filthy dump his cousin was living in after he'd escorted her home, had convinced Mr. Chase of that. But before it could happen, Cordy had received a phone call from Margo, saying that Russell Winters had expressed interest in helping her movie star career get started – and the rest was history.

"You're a vampire! You're a vampire!" Cordelia hollered, backing away from Russell in his fortress-like home. ( Yuckiest demon face ever, but still! )

"I love it when they run," Winters laughed to himself, about to chase after her. But then he stopped laughing as all the lights abruptly went out. "What the hell?"

That 'what,' it turned out, happened to be Angel.

He had come here on a mission of revenge, to kill Winters for murdering a young woman named Tina; someone Angel had recently been trying to protect, after meeting a seer for the Powers named Alan Francis Doyle. Not needing an invitation to enter a fellow vampire's home, the Champion smashed his way through the patio door and said, "Russell Winters. I have a message for you – from Tina."

"I don't know who you are, but you made a very big mistake coming here," Winters growled at the other undead, forgetting all about the fleeing Cordelia – someone who was now heading for the front door, and desperately calling Tim to come and pick her up on the cell phone he had given her last night.

"The name's Angelus. You might have heard of me," Angel replied, totally focusing on his opponent, given that he didn't have to worry about protecting the Chase woman. He then withdrew a stake and attacked.

Unfortunately, Angel didn't quite manage to kill Russell, thanks to the various bodyguards Winters had patrolling his estate. But he DID manage to shove the bad guy out the window of the top floor office in the Wolfram & Hart building the next day, burning Russell into ashes as the gathered lawyers watched helplessly.

Curiously, Cordelia never did find out what had happened to the soulless monster that had wanted to drain her dry that night. Putting the incident behind her as soon as possible, Miss Chase was too busy trying to get her Hollywood acting career off the ground – and failing miserably to do so, despite her cousin Tim's help.


Sunnydale General Hospital, Sunnydale

August 18th, 2000

Oz saw Buffy and the rest of the Scooby Gang gathered together not far away, as he waited to hear from the doctors what was the situation with his best friend, Devon; someone who had undergone a drug overdose last night. But as soon as he saw Willow and her girlfriend Tara Maclay hold hands, the werewolf averted his eyes from the group and pretended he simply hadn't noticed them.

It was his own fault, Oz knew that. He had broken up with Willow over a year ago, and she had moved on. The musician had never expected the redhead to move on to a woman whilst he'd been in Tibet seeking a cure to his lycanthropy problem, but then people had a way of surprising you – Willow, most of all.

Still, his life wasn't all bad. For example, Oz had never run afoul of the demon-hunting group called the Initiative last year, before a cyber-demonoid named ADAM had tried to kill them all. Luckily, even though nearly ninety percent of the Initiative soldiers had been slaughtered, the Scooby Gang had managed to rip out ADAM's power source and save the day at the last moment – by using blitzkrieg tactics against the cyborg, and Oz providing a timely distraction using his finally-under-control werewolf aspect.

Oz spotted a familiar face wearing a 1970's black leather duster lurking nearby. So he went up to the individual in question and said, "This is a hospital. No smoking allowed."

The chipped, soulless British vampire named Spike merely sneered at Oz. "So what are ya gonna do about it, Dog Boy? Tell the Slayer on me?"

"Maybe. Or I might call Security and have them throw you out of the building. Without your blanket," Oz replied to his one-time roommate.

"Well, now I'm scared. No, wait, I'm not – not of some git who couldn't even keep his bird 'appy," Spike sniggered in Oz's face. "Y'know, when I 'eard that Red started playin' for the other team, I figgered it was all your fault – that you'd ruined her for all other blokes by dumping her cute arse way back when. But nowadays, I'm thinkin' otherwise. What do you reckon, mate – Willow just needs to find a REAL man, to get over this little lesbian phase o' hers?"

"You think you qualify, even if that was true?" Oz replied emotionlessly. "You couldn't even keep Harmony happy, the way I heard it."

Spike growled, instinctively slipping into his vampire face. His history with that undead airhead wasn't something William the Bloody cared to dwell upon right now. The peroxide-blonde Englishman then managed to calm himself and resume his human mask, making a few more scathing remarks to Oz before deciding to leave the hospital and resume stalking Buffy some other time.

"Mr. Osborne?" an intern named Ben finally caught Oz's attention. "I need to talk to you about your friend, Mr. MacLeish?"

"Devon," Oz nodded.

"Well, the good news is that he'll survive what happened with the PCP last night. But I'm afraid there's been significant damage to his heart..." Ben trailed off, feeling something strange about to happen to him. "I..."

"Are you okay?" Oz asked in concern.

"Ngggh...something's wrong..." Ben managed to gasp, before running off towards the bathroom.

Oz followed him, frowning. His werewolf nose told him that the man was human, but now there was a smell that hinted to Oz of something that wasn't part of the human world. There was also an electric buzz, a hint of magic, which had begun to coalesce in the air. The bass guitarist had felt it often enough when Willow had practiced learning magic during high school.

Oz found Ben in one of the toilet stalls, and the man was visibly sick. But before the werewolf could say anything, Ben morphed into a beautiful blonde woman.

The hellgod Glorificus, or 'Glory' as she preferred to be known. A creature that had been cast out of its hellfire dimension nearly twenty-five years ago, imprisoned in Ben's body to die on the mortal plane. But recently the prison walls had been breached, and Glory was now able to manifest herself in the human world.

"I'm hungry!" Glory shouted, exiting the stall as Oz stared at her in surprise. Then she looked down at the blue surgical scrubs Ben had had on. "UGH! What the hell is this crap that I'm wearing?"

( Okay, someone reminds me of a blonde Cordelia... ) "Who are you?" Oz asked politely, drawing attention to himself.

Glory turned to stare at him, and straightaway wrinkled her nose. "What is that smell? You stink! Don't you ever take a bath? Eww. What is that stench, anyway, something canine? Oh, don't tell me – you're a freaking werewolf, aren't you? Stupid human mutts, can't even brain-suck them..."

With casual, almost contemptuous ease, Glory smacked Oz aside as the lycanthrope smashed into the wall with enough force to knock him out completely. The next moment though, her infernal energy exhausted, Glory had to relinquish control of the body to Ben and retreat to deep within her host. Until she had gathered enough strength to break free again, anyway.

The real battle, however, had already been won.

Because after he woke up, Oz would still remember what had happened – the cloaking magic which prevented anyone human from remembering that Ben was Glory and Glory was Ben had failed to work on him, because technically he wasn't human – he was a werewolf. Consequently, the young man was immune to such magicks.

Thus, Buffy would not have to die for the cause in about nine months' time, after her little sister Dawn had been created by the monks of the Order of Dagon – because Oz and a semi-reluctant Spike would take care of business, before it ever came to that.


Exclusive health club, Los Angeles

The same time

Angel, Wesley and the woman named Harriet (a.k.a. Harry) Doyle met up outside the club, and then quickly walked inside.

"Can I help you?" the attendant at the front desk asked. But Angel and his companions never even broke stride, and the guy had to follow the Fang Gang through the health club to catch up. "I'm sorry, but this club is for members and their guests only!"

"Yeah, well, I'm thinking of joining," Angel replied carelessly.

"Excuse me! But you can't come in here without a membership, or a guest pass!" the attendant insisted, getting flustered over how his orders were still being totally ignored.

Harry, the widow of Alan Francis Doyle who had inherited his gift-slash-curse of visions from the Powers That Be, said to Angel, "Are you sure we're in the right place?"

Wesley nodded. "This is a tad public for a Praetorian sacrifice."

"The quadrants match. Besides, it's a Carnyss demon, and they love muscles and mirrors," Angel replied as everyone came to a stop, the attendant still behind them.

"Hey, listen! I'm not fooling around, I will call the pol-" the attendant blustered, before he finally noticed that the vampire wasn't reflected in the wall of mirrors before which they were all standing.

"Huh. No reflection. I'll fix that," Angel promised the health club worker, before he kicked in the mirror wall and stepped through the jagged edges of the shattered glass, surprising a red-robed human and a demon with its sword raised to sacrifice two bound and gagged captives.

Angel vamped out and commanded the bad guys, "Stop that."

The fight began, as Angel first slammed the charging human against a wall and then began to fight the Carnyss demon with the sword. While Wesley and Harry took out the human acolyte by dropping a round metal weight on the guy's head, the ensouled vampire managed to tear the sword away from the demon and stab it through the heart with its own weapon.

"That guy has horns," the wide-eyed attendant stammered in disbelief, looking into the hidden chamber as the Fang Gang freed the captives.

"Steroids. Not good for you," Angel quipped as the good guys escorted the sacrifices out of there.

"Seriously, Angel, steroids?" Harry asked archly a few minutes later, as she, Wes and the undead Champion began to leave the gymnasium.

"It's something you gotta worry about, y'know, when you're human," Angel shrugged.

"You're thinking about that shanshu prophecy again, aren't you?" the blonde Vision Girl asked, referring to something her boss had found stored in the basement of the Wolfram & Hart building a few months ago. "Angel, we still don't know when that's going to happen, when the Powers are going to make you human. Didn't Wesley say that it'll be at least three years or something?"

"You're referring to that part of the prophecy concerning the Beast of Amalfie. However, that's not necessarily when Angel's shanshu will take place," Wesley pointed out. "Still, Harry does raise a good point; there's no need for us to count our chickens before they're hatched. And, doubtless, Wolfram & Hart will keep us all busy until Angel's shanshu is finally upon us."

"I just wish we knew what it was that the evil lawyers raised a few months ago, when that Vocah guy was around," Angel said, referring to the ritual of the Raising; a dark and unholy rite which had resurrected Angel's sire, Darla, from the realms of oblivion.

"Well, I suspect we'll find out soon enough," Wesley said pessimistically.

The ex-Watcher was more right than he knew, as in the coming months both Darla and Drusilla – Spike's sire, and Angel's demented childe – would create chaos and terror for Angel's Avengers AND the LA branch of the firm.


Stateville Correctional Center, Joliet

January 19th, 2001

In sunny California, Buffy and the Scooby Gang were celebrating the blonde Slayer's 20th birthday. But here in wintry Illinois, Xander Harris was doing time for arson.

The young man's life had changed a LOT since that night he'd driven out of Sunnydale as if the Devil himself was on his trail. Xander had headed north towards Oxnard and beyond, before he had abandoned his uncle's car and done his best to disappear so that Patrice and the Order of Taraka would be unable to find him.

Xander had subsequently done many things to stay underneath the radar, like avoiding human contact altogether by camping in places like Yosemite National Park. But that phase hadn't lasted long; he'd ended up hating being all alone, so he'd eventually headed east and decided to settle down in Chicago.

To pass the time Xander had often worked as a day laborer for the construction company called Bulley & Andrews; it was minimum wage work, but it was in cash with no questions asked, just like for other men who had no wish for their names to come to the attention of the authorities. Or anyone else, for that matter.

When he was working, it wasn't so bad. But when Xander was alone, that was when the paranoia had crept in. He was suspicious of every new face he saw, because to his mind, it might belong to one of the Order's assassins. Harris had kept an eye on every alley, every street corner, and every bum on a park bench he passed by, just in case they turned out to be trouble. There had even been one case of mistaken identity, where Harris had taken a drug dealer's interest in him as the prelude to a hail of bullets heading his way.

It was rather ironic, therefore, that the youth had eventually been imprisoned for something totally unrelated to the Order of Taraka.

A nest of vampires had started preying on the people within the run-down neighborhood Xander was living in, so he'd had to do something about it – but unfortunately, burning down the building the bloodsuckers had been lured into meant being spotted doing so by the local cops, arrested, processed through the courts and sent to jail for five years.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Harris. I'm Lilah Morgan; attorney at law from the firm of Wolfram & Hart, Los Angeles branch," the striking brunette said with a genuine-looking smile as Xander sat down opposite her at one of the small tables in the interview hall.

If the evil lawyer was expecting a reply, she was sorely disappointed. Silence was the only response from the Sunnydale-born prison convict.

"Well. Let's get down to business, shall we?" Lilah asked, her smile growing wider. "You know, you were a rather difficult man to track down. Even for a full-service law firm like mine – oh, did I mention that I'm the new head of the Special Projects division? That means resources such that you couldn't even imagine. Then again, maybe you could. Since you grew up in Sunnydale and all-"

As quick as a snake, Xander lashed out and grabbed Lilah's left arm. "What. Do. You. Want?" he rasped angrily.

"I want to hire you, Mr. Harris. I'm willing to become your lawyer pro bono and get you out of here, in exchange for you doing a job for me," Ms. Morgan replied, her smile not flickering for an instant as the prisoner let go of her arm. "Interested?"

Xander already suspected that her offer was simply too good to be true, as he'd heard about Wolfram & Hart on the prison grapevine. A few inmates had spoken to him of how that particular law firm could get its clients off, no matter how guilty they were; but the price they asked in return was usually a very steep one. "What's the catch?"

Lilah kept on smiling at her companion. "There isn't one, oddly enough. Well, apart from the dangers associated with the job, of course. You see – last month in Los Angeles, two female vampires massacred my predecessor, Holland Manners, and sixteen other lawyers in Special Projects. Including my old friends and co-workers, Lindsey and Lee! So I want you to track down those two vampires, and dust them with extreme prejudice."

"Why me?" Xander asked suspiciously.

"Ah, well, there's a number of reasons. First of all – you have the advantage in that you're a complete outsider, so, hopefully neither target should see you coming. Second, you're familiar with the vampires in question as they spent some time in Sunnydale when you were still living there. Third, I don't think there's any danger of you running afoul of the so-called Champion those two have been consorting with lately – your old frenemy, Angel."

The mention of that name brought back memories of a time Xander did not care to dwell upon. Especially that night Faith had threatened to cut his heart out. "All right, now I'm curious. Who exactly are these two vamps you're wanting dusted?"

Lilah's smile finally vanished, as she slid two old photographs across the table. "Darla; she's the vampire who, according to Files and Records, killed your childhood friend named Jesse McNally. And Drusilla; the vampire who killed your other friend, Kendra the Slayer."

Shocked, Xander stared at the black and white pictures of the blonde and the brunette. Harris had known that Drusilla was most likely still out there somewhere, but he had no idea how Darla could have returned – as he had seen Angel stake her with his own two eyes, during his sophomore year of high school. ( Still, what do I care about that? If everything I've heard so far is true, that bitch is back – and that's all that matters. )

"Lady, you got yourself a deal," Harris said to Lilah grimly. And so the pair quickly shook hands on the matter and, as simple as that, their business was concluded.

Thus, it would come to pass that a few weeks later – even for Wolfram & Hart, it took some time to grease the wheels of justice a bit – Xander arrived in the City of Angels. The scientist named Knox gave him everything he needed; and afterwards, Harris staked out the home of Angel Investigations, the one and only Hyperion Hotel.

And despite the screaming of that rogue Power That Be in a higher dimension, Xander dusted Darla with an axe to the neck after she arrived at the Hyperion and got hit by a tranquilliser dart, just outside the front doors. The mercenary named Skip refused to intervene to save the so-called Grandmother, as the silver demon definitely did not want to incur the wrath of the Senior Partners – whom he knew were personally watching events on the mortal realm.

Luckily however for the renegade Power, it was able to select a new set of Grandparents as part of its backup plans in order to eventually create the miracle child – the son of two vampires, and the key ingredient for the Power to manifest within the mortal realm. Those plans were quickly put into effect, as the destinies of Spike and Harmony subsequently changed direction on a grand scale.

Knowing nothing of all this, unfortunately, Xander set off to locate and stake Drusilla – a task that would take him a long time, given her gifts of second sight and whatnot, but then Harris had a whole lifetime ahead of him and nothing else in particular to do.


Sunnydale Police Department Headquarters, Sunnydale

May 7th, 2002

Locked up within the crowded jail cell, the Trio – Andrew Wells, Jonathan Levinson and Warren Mears – were all present and accounted for. And while Andrew and Jonathan were having a ridiculous sissy-kicker fight, Warren was brooding on the top bunk and ignoring his two partners-in-crime.

Here and now, many things were different than they otherwise would have been, had Xander Harris not left Sunnydale.

For example, Buffy had never engaged in a sexual relationship with Spike over the last nine months. This was because she had never been brought back from the dead, and become thoroughly traumatized by being torn out of Heaven. The blonde Slayer's subsequent lack of interest in the chipped vampire's welfare was one reason why Spike had finally left Sunnydale back in February, around the time Riley and Samantha Finn had shown up to taken care of a Suvolte demon and its spawn – which was all part of the rogue Power's new plans.

Be that as it may, though, since Xander hadn't been there in Buffy's backyard when Warren came storming in with a gun – and the Slayer didn't have to push Harris out of the way – Ms. Summers had hurled an ugly-looking garden gnome at the maniac's head before he could pull the trigger, and knocked Mears out cold. As a result, the cops had come and arrested Warren, Tara was never killed and Dark Willow had never been unleashed.

Warren suddenly lost his temper over Andrew and Jonathan's foolish antics and he yelled at them, "Will you two idiots knock it off? Shut up and lemme think! We're in big trouble here..."

Andrew stared at his not-so-secret crush. "You think they'll let my aunt bring me my Discman?"

"That's what you're concerned about? We're in jail, you moron!" Jonathan said scornfully.

"We're in custody. We haven't actually been charged yet," Andrew pointed out the slight differences in the technicalities regarding their current incarceration.

"Well, thanks for the clarification, Dragnet!" Jonathan then stared at both Andrew and Warren angrily, "It doesn't matter what you call it; they got us, okay? We're all going down for what we did. Despite the fact that you two planned it so that I'd be the one left behind, holding the bag!"

"That's not true! I – would have carried you..." Andrew trailed off, as he saw Levinson wasn't buying his explanation regarding their recent attempted robbery and why Jonathan had been the only one without a rocket jet-pack.

At that moment, Patrice showed up. The same Patrice who had shot Detective Stein three years ago, that night he'd been about to murder Xander.

Even though after the Mayor had been killed, and the contract on Xander's life had been officially nullified – there being no paying client anymore, and Richard Wilkins had been enough of a cheapskate to only pay up after the job was done, apart from a small down payment – Patrice had nonetheless requested to stay here in Sunnydale, on the off-chance that Xander would show up again and she could finish the job.

This was personal for her, after all.

Harris had humiliated her that night and the female assassin could not be content until after her former target was dead. Still, the upper echelons of the Order had decided yesterday to recall her to active duty, since it was now obvious that the man was never coming back to his home town.

"Warren Mears," Patrice announced, standing in front of the Trio.

"Yeah?"

Ignoring Andrew and Jonathan, Patrice told Warren that she was actually an undercover operative for the Order of Taraka. "I've been keeping an eye on you as a potential recruit for the Order since it came to my attention that you'd killed your ex-girlfriend, the woman named Katrina Silbers. I thought you had what it took to join us, Mr. Mears; but it seems I was mistaken. Now I have to leave, and report to my superiors that I was wasting my time with you all along."

Ignoring the frantic questions from Andrew and Jonathan, Warren stared at Patrice and asked himself some pointed questions. ( Like, why would she even bother coming here at all, if that was it? )

The next moment, Warren managed to get it. He asked, "What exactly does it takes to join this Order of yours?"

Patrice replied, "At least three separate confirmed kills for entry at the initiate level – a lot more before you get your own ring, and actually become one of us." She subsequently displayed her ring with the Order's symbol to Warren.

The robot maker could see how closely the false cop was standing to the jail cell, and more importantly the position Patrice was in – he could reach through the bars and just grab her pistol, if he wanted to. Looking into Patrice's eyes Warren nodded once, grabbed the firearm and took aim at his cellmates.

"What are you doing-?" Jonathan managed to splutter, just before Warren pulled the trigger and shot Levinson up close, using his own body to try to muffle the noise.

Andrew squawked, "But, but, you promised me that we'd be together forever-!" before Warren ruthlessly killed him too.

Smiling, Patrice opened the jail cell door and Warren handed over the gun to her. "Does that qualify for three separate confirmed kills?"

"Yes, indeed..."

Warren then willingly followed Patrice as they escaped from the stationhouse, and the evil pair quickly left Sunnydale.

Mears definitely planned to come back one day, though, and finish what he'd started in terms of killing Buffy. Because Warren still hated her with a fiery passion, and he wasn't the type to ever forgive and forget either.

TBC...