Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Angel, or any associated characters; I just own this plot, Heure, and Brindil. I don't own Duana; he's a creation of Jaclyn Blackrose.

Feedback: Naturally

Buff: Glad to hear it; hope I didn't keep you waiting

mz.sarJe: No, that's as far as the Xander-bashing goes; I just figured PastBuffy should vent her anger at him for lying to her before she got too far into the story

X-identaty: Thank you; here it is

A2zmom: Fair point, but you have to take into account that, technically, Buffy's already forgiven Xander for lying to her; Angel just thought it would be best to let Buffy vent her rage right then

wackycavegirl: Don't worry, I'm not giving up on this any time soon; hope I didn't keep you waiting too long

C'est Magnifique: Nope, they won't; hope you don't mind, but I really HATE Spuffy….

charisma: Glad it went down well; I was a bit worried about the Xander thing, but I figured it had to be done.

WhiteWolf 3: Sorry about that, but I figured Past Buffy needed to vent her anger at him.

MysticWolf1: You'll just have to se how this goes; I'll be trying to develop the relationship a bit, but I am principally a B/A man all the way

Freezyboncoolipants: Hope this goes down well

IWRY-ALWAYS: Believe me, when Duana's plans are revealed, you're definitely going to be surprised…

never look back: Hope it lives up to your expectations

CarineM: That's good; I was worried that it wouldn't go down very well

Scourge of Europe: Maybe it was, but I felt it had to be done; after all, it's hardly the kind of thing Buffy's just going to let go, is it?

Graga Serrs: Believe me, you thought what happened so far was interesting? Wait until you've read this chapter.

AN: I acknowledge that this chapter is far longer then any of my earlier ones, but I just couldn't cut it down.

A Buffy from the Past

Duana smiled as he looked at the beautiful brunette standing in front of him. He'd been expecting that they'd send her, of course- she was one of their most devoted operatives, even in death- but still, he hadn't been expecting her to be quite so… attractive.

Or quite so openly turned on by his appearance.

Oh, maybe not exactly all that openly, he had to admit, but he'd been around quite a bit in his lifetime, and could tell when women found him attractive fairly easily now. She wasn't exactly making it obvious, he had to admit, but the faint shifting of her feet, the faint blush creeping up her cheeks…

It all added up to a pretty obvious picture.

At least, obvious for him.

"So, Miss Morgan, those are my terms," he said, turning his attention back to the matter at hand. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to gather his warriors so far, but if this didn't pay off, all that work would be for nothing. "Do the Senior Partners accept them, or does this have to get unpleasant?"

"For who?" Lilah smiled, pushing a strand of hair back from out of her eyes and looking at him quizzically. "After all, if you've really recruited who you say you've recruited, I doubt that we'd be able to put your side down easily."

"Miss Morgan, do not try to appeal to my vanity, please?" Duana asked, sighing in an overdramatic manner as he looked at her. "We both know it wouldn't do any good, and your attempts are therefore demeaning to both of us."

He looked her in the eyes again, taking up his professional posture once again. "Besides, I am aware of the power possessed by the Senior Partners; even with my best allies, I doubt I could last against them for long without the aid of the Powers That Be at the very least. No, I want your, and therefore their, guarantee, that I can proceed with my plan while considering them at my back for the big finale, and then I shall take it from there. Is that understood?"

Lilah smiled slightly as she nodded. "You've got a deal, Duana," she said. "On one condition."

"Which is?" Duana replied casually.

"The Partners won't be seeking revenge if your 'Circle' ends up dead," she said, raising her fingers in quote marks for the word 'Circle'. "They're prepared to give you a chance, but if you fall down, nobody's getting killed in retaliation."

Duana simply smiled. "I assure you, Miss Morgan, that once I have succeeded, it won't matter in the slightest whether or not the other members of my 'Circle' are alive or not," he said casually. "So long as I am alive, the Partners shall get the Apocalypse they desire; I don't really care about the others."

Lilah smiled. "Good," she said. "In that case, feel free to make your move."


"Any luck?" Wesley asked Fred, where she sat pouring over one of the volumes he'd picked up from the library. With Angel and Buffy covering the legwork for their current investigation, Wesley and Fred were looking over their books for any extra information that might help pinpoint the mastermind behind this operation, while Gunn and Spike (Aided by a reluctant Harmony) went over their legal records to see if they had a file on Heure or Dracula that they could use to track them down.

Unfortunately, Wesley didn't know about the others, but his end of the investigation hadn't been going well.

"Not really," Fred sighed, as she looked up at Wesley, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. "It's just frustrating; every time I find a likely looking demon with the power and ambition to get Heure and Dracula on their proverbial payroll, it turns out they died, or they hate vampires, or they just don't think ahead that much."

She sighed. "Still, at least this can't get any-"

"We need a… medical guy of some kind!" a voice yelled from the door of the meeting room.

Wesley spun around in the direction of the door.

And froze.

Buffy was standing in the door, Angel's large form slumped beside her, with one arm over her shoulders. However, as shocking as that was, Wesley couldn't deny he hadn't been expecting it; Dracula was a powerful opponent, even for two warriors like Buffy and Angel.

No, what was really a shock to Angel was the fact, on Angel's other side, dressed in more contemporary clothing (As least, Wesley thought it was; he never really followed fashions of any kind) was…

"Buffy?" he said in confusion, as Fred looked up and blinked in surprise at the sight. Then again, Wesley couldn't exactly blame her; he'd never seen anything quite like this himself.


"How long do we have to wait?" one of the Legion of the Fell Brethren asked its leader, as they lounged around in the hotel room that they'd booked when they'd arrived in L.A. They'd been trying to arrange a meeting with the heads of Wolfram & Hart for the past two weeks to discuss custody of the child that would be their sacrifice, but, so far, the vampire had always apparently managed to find some way to reschedule the meeting.

"Oh, it can't be that much longer," the leader said aimlessly, trying not to show how much the delay bothered him as well. "Give the vampire another week or so and we'll have the meeting; he knows that he has to do it, eventually."

"No no no," a voice said from outside the door. "You'll find that Daddy's weaker side doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do, no matter how much we may wish it were otherwise."

"What?" another member of the Brethren said, looking at the door curiously. "Who's that?"

He walked towards the door….

And suddenly it flew off its hinges, striking the Brethren member in the face and sending him flying into the nearby wall.

The remaining members of the Brethren stared in horror at the figure that came walking through the door. It was a tall woman, elegant and beautiful in her own way, clad in a long, tight red gown that reached down to around her ankles. There was a glint of madness in her eyes, and her long dark hair stretched down behind her in a manner that, somehow, only added to the terror that her appearance created.

The Brethren knew who this was, of course. You couldn't know about Angelus and not be aware of the existence of Drusilla, his most famous childe.

She smiled at them.

"Hello, my ugly little friends," she said, grinning broadly. Then her smile vanished, and she raised her hands in a combat stance. "Time for you to die now; my Daddy told me so."


"Yeah, hi Wes, Fred, good to see you two again, can you just help us out right now, please?" Buffy asked, indicating the large vampire between her and her past self.

"Oh my god..." Fred whispered as she looked between the two Buffys for a few seconds before she finally spoke. "Have you touched?"

"What?" PastBuffy asked, looking over at Fred. "What do you mean, have we touched?"

"You know, all those issues about the same matter being unable to exist in two different paces at the same time?" Fred said. "I mean, the complications of two different versions of you existing at once…. Matter isn't meant to exist in two separate locations simultaneously… what if-?"

Buffy held up her hand. "Easy, Fred," she said, trying to sound calm. "We acknowledge your point, but we've already come in contact while hauling Angel up here, and nothing averse has happened to the fabric of reality so far." Then she paused, looked over at her past self, and shrugged. "At least, nothing that wasn't up with it already."

Wesley sighed. "Fred, can we focus on the matter at hand?" he asked the young woman, before turning back to look at the Buffys and the unconscious Angel, who they'd now lain down on the meeting table. "What happened to him?" he asked PastBuffy curiously.

"Demon," PastBuffy replied simply. "Looked a bit like Two-Face if he was an albino and was part-lizard rather than just disfigured. He zapped Angel and Willow with some strange kind of black-and-white beam, knocked them out, and then just vanished into thin air. Any ideas?"

Wesley blinked.

"Did…. did you say. Willow?" he asked Buffy, looking at his former Slayer in surprise.

"Yeah, the gang's all here, Wes!" another voice said from the door. Turning around, Wesley was only partly surprised to see the forms of a slightly battered Xander Harris and an apparently well Faith holding up the unconscious, red-haired form of Willow Rosenberg, while Dawn Summers and another girl who Wesley didn't recognize milling around behind them.

Wesley sighed inwardly.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any more confusing…


"So, how's the campaign plan coming along?" Senator Bruckner asked Ersteno curiously, as her vampire aide shifted through the papers in her office.

"Oh, the usual sort of issues," Ernesto commented, as he glanced up from his desk at her once again. "We can't seem to get around this Mike Conley character; there's just something about him that makes him more appealing."

He looked up at her. "Maybe we should consider asking Angelus for assistance?"

Bruckner shook her head, a smile on her face. "Quite frankly, I'm not sure I could trust him not to mess things us deliberately nowadays," she said casually. "You know my policy; if the head of Wolfram & Hart isn't at least trying to get into the Circle, I can't be sure he'll help me."

"A wise policy," a new voice said from outside the door of the campaign headquarters. "Too bad you shall never live to find an alternative."

Senator Bruckner turned around to see who was talking.

And blinked in shock at the tall, regal, elegantly-dressed, one-armed man who was standing in the door.

"Dracula?" she whispered; she'd met him a while back when he'd been nominated for membership in the Circle. He had declined at the time, claiming that he preferred to operate on his own, but if he was here now…

He drew a sword that had been hanging on his back, and Bruckner swallowed.

She was pretty sure this wasn't going to work out well for her.


"So, can you give us anything else on this demon that attacked you?" Fred asked Xander as the two of them poured over a book, while Dawn and Wesley looked over another one. Following quick introductions (Although only Kennedy had needed any, the others had all worked together in the past, no matter how briefly it had been), the two Buffys, along with Faith and Kennedy, had taken Angel and Willow off to the hospital wing, leaving the other four to check over the books and try and find any answers as to what the demon was that had attacked them.

"No, you've pretty much got everything we know," Xander said, shrugging. "His name's Duelle, apparently, he dresses and looks a bit like Two-Face, and he shoots this freaky black-and-white beam at people that makes them collapse, but for some reason he only went for Dead-Boy and Willow." Then he looked up at the ceiling, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Wait a moment…"

"What?" Fred asked, looking up at Xander curiously.

"Well… it may be nothing, but when the guy was facing Faith, he said something about how it was a shame that the 'split' wasn't as clean as it was with the others…. or something like that," Xander said, looking back at Fred. "That any help?"

Fred nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe…" she said, as she reached over, picked up a nearby notebook, and started to flick through it. "If we tried to figure out what Willow and Angel have in common that almost includes Faith in the mix, maybe we can get a better idea of what his powers are."

Xander nodded. "Right," he said, as he looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"Anything?" Fred asked the young man after a few moments.

"Well. they're both Champions who aren't part of some massive destiny…. thing like Buffy is?" Xander suggested hopefully. "And Faith is, well, almost along those lines, due to her briefly going rogue on us five years ago?"

Fred shook her head. "Doesn't work," she said. "On that argument, Duelle could have gone for any one of the rest of you if all he wanted was to knock you out; there has to be something more specific…"


Izzy looked up from the table to glance in the direction of Marrianna Escabor, a vampire who had recently been appointed to the Circle.

"So, how has everything been recently on that island of yours?" he asked inquiringly, as he passed her a raw steak. "I understand you finally managed to kill your husband?"

"Yes, indeed," Marianna replied, taking the steak and biting into it. "It wasn't exactly easy, but I think he got my point." Then she shrugged casually. "Well, actually he got my bullets, but it doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?"

Izzy laughed. "No, it doesn't," he smiled, as he reached over and poured himself another glass of wine as he turned to another member of the circle. "So, tell me-"

Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from outside the dining room.

"What the….?" Izzy asked, leaping to his feet and staring at the door, closely followed by the other diners.

A figure stepped through it, tall and imposing, dressed only in a dark grey pair of trousers. The figure's main body was a disturbing amalgamation of man, demon, and machine; its right eye and most of the right side of its head was that of a human male, but the rest of his head was a demonic-looking green; his left cheek even had a large metal plate on it. Similar plates adorned the left side of his chest, and he had a large device that resembled a gun on his right arm, while the rest of his body resembled something that had been thrown together by Doctor Frankenstein.

Izzy blinked in surprise. He remembered this character from files a few years back; an experiment by some demon-investigating government branch that the Black Thorn had manipulated slightly in order to create a new breed of super-solider.

But surely the Slayer had destroyed the subject?

"Adam?" Izzy asked inquiringly, taking a cautious step forward.

The cyborg (Or should that be triborg? Izzy wondered irrelevantly) turned to look at him, and grinned.

Izzy swallowed.

This wasn't good.


"We need a doctor!" Faith yelled, as she kicked down the door of the Wolfram & Hart science division, Willow slumped over her and Kennedy's shoulders.

"I'm sorry; you are?" one of the men asked, looking over at the two Slayers curiously.

"For God's sake, this place tried to employ me four years ago!" Faith yelled, as she shrugged Willow's arm off her shoulders, walked over to the doctor, grabbed him by the jacket, and hauled him up until his feet were at least half a metre of the ground.

Faith looked the man in the eye as he whimpered nervously.

"I'm Faith, the vampire slayer," she said to him casually. "The girl back there is Kennedy, another Slayer, the redhead is Willow, a witch who helped your boss out at least twice, and we have that selfsame boss coming right behind us with two different versions of the same person, who share the common feature of being madly in love with him no matter what they've gone through over the years, so either you help us out now, or I'll forget that I don't do that sort of thing any more and break your neck." She brought him down slightly so that they were more directly eye-to-eye. "Got that?"

The man nodded shakily.

"Good," Faith said, as she placed him back down on the ground again. "Now, get that equipment out, OK? You've got some scans to make."


Sebassis thoughtfully sipped at the glass he held in his hand, and mused on recent events.

Overall, he had to admit that things were going well. The vampire's appointment to control of Wolfram & Hart had left several members of the Circle worried, but, personally, Sebassis was very relaxed about the whole affair; he had experience with power, and he was sure that it would only be a matter of time before the vampire's new power corrupted him.

Then…

He smiled.

Then, it might very well be worth the Circle's time to see about recruiting him for their cause. After all, Angelus had the potential to be a valuable ally in the Circle if he became a member…

He cocked his head on one side curiously, as he heard a faint thud from outside his building.

"Go and see what that is, will you?" he asked the servant that was standing beside him; he briefly found himself grateful that he hadn't felt too thirsty at the present, otherwise he'd have to go and check it out himself.

"Of course, Master," the servant said. He turned to face the door, walked towards it…

Only to be met by both of the double doors as they flew off their hinges, striking the servant's frail form directly in the face, and leaving him sprawled on the ground, practically flattened.

As Sebassis stared at the sight in front of him in horror, a large figure stepped through the door. It was over six feet tall, almost reaching a towering seven in height, with dark brownish skin covered in thin red lines, with golden eyes and long white horns sticking up out of its head.

Sebassis gulped. He knew this creature well; it had, after all, been responsible for the destruction of the previous L.A. branch of Wolfram & Hart, and nearly triggered an early Apocalypse with the aid of its 'Master'.

The Beast.

As it turned towards him, Sebassis briefly wondered if his army would manage to do much damage to the Beast after he was dead, or if it would cut through them as easily as it had cut through the old Wolfram & Hart employees…


"What the bloody hell is going on here?" Spike yelled, as he kicked the door open and charged into the science division, waving a folder in his hand as he spoke. "I go to all that sodding effort of trying to track down those records, and now I hear that the poof's gone and gotten himself…."

He froze, and stared at the sight in front of him in a mix of both horror and joy.

"Buffy….?" he whispered, as she, her past self, Faith and Kennedy turned around to look at him.

He swallowed nervously.

This couldn't be good.

"Spike," Buffy said, nodding briefly at him. She turned to look at her fellow Slayers. "Could you excuse me for a few moments?"


"Um. sure?" PastBuffy said, deciding she'd better speak for the others. As her future self walked out of the room, just a bit behind Spike, she looked over at Faith and Kennedy curiously. "What's up between…. us…. now?" she asked, indicating the door that 'she'd' just walked out of.

Faith sighed. "Short version?" she asked PastBuffy casually. PastBuffy nodded. "Basically, Spike fell in love with you after he got his chip, you had a sorta relationship when you came back to life because you needed some stress relief, you broke it off, Spike got his soul and you two became friends, he died and- apparently- got resurrected, and didn't mention it to any of us before now."

PastBuffy blinked in shock.

"W… what?" she said, looking at Faith in horror. "I. I was involved… with SPIKE!"

"If it helps you, we can assure you that you never really loved him that way," Kennedy put in. "You've mentioned a few times over the past year or so that you thought of him as more than a friend, but you never actually loved him."

PastBuffy took that in, but privately she just shuddered.

Her and… Spike?

She seriously needed to have a bit of a talk with her future self when she got the chance….


"So, care to tell me why you didn't tell me you were alive?" Buffy asked Spike, looking critically at him.

"Why? So you could convince you and yours that my death didn't matter? That good ol' Spike hadn't changed?" Spike asked, slightly harshly. "I'd rather you remembered me as making a last stand, rather then as just… going off for a bit."

Buffy stared at Spike blankly for a few seconds, before she finally spoke.

"You actually thought I'd say that?" she asked him, taking a step or so towards him to look him directly in the eyes. "Spike, I would never insinuate that your sacrifice didn't matter! You of all people should know I would never think that."

Stepping forward, she touch his cheek with one hand, and, leaning in, briefly kissed him on the lips. It wasn't a passionate kiss; just a chaste peck on the lips, that might have been exchanged between close friends in desperate moments.

She pulled back and looked at him. "You saved us, Spike. Without you, we would have all died. That doesn't get belittled just because you're back. Which for the record, I'm glad. I missed you, Spike."

Spike gulped. He glanced at her warily. "Missed you too, Luv."

Buffy started to speak, but he just sighed and indicated the medical room. "Get going; the poof's still in there."


Buffy blinked in surprise. "W. what?" she asked him.

"Look, just get in there, will you?" Spike said, smiling slightly as he looked at her. "The self-sacrificing thing is more Peaches's gig then mine; don't want to be accused of nicking his stuff." He rolled his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. "Already got enough of that crap from him back during that fight with the bloody Coalition, thank you very much."

Buffy blinked in surprise.

Then, smiling, she leaned forward and hugged Spike, staying that way for a few seconds before letting go and looking at him again.

"You're getting there," she said, smiling at him.

"Oh, balls." Spike muttered, sounding only partly sarcastic. "Just go, will you?" Spike said, smiling as he jerked his thumb towards the medical bay. "I'll take these files back to the others; maybe Wes'll be able to get some use out of them…"


The Sahvrin weren't even sure what they were doing in L. A. anymore.

The negotiations between their people and the Vinjis had gone well, thanks to the efforts of the vampire, despite that incident with the secretary being framed, but they'd decided to just stick around after that, savouring the delights of civilisation, which they'd long ignored in favour of their conflict.

Quick frankly, this opium den was just bliss…

Then someone punched through the door of their private room, threw it off to one
side, and walked into the room, dusting off his hands as he did so.

Turning to look at him, the few Sahvrin not totally incoherent due to the drugs, blinked in surprise at the man's costume; he was dressed in the black garb and white collar of a preacher, with a long floppy fringe and a fairly handsome face.

The most alert Sahvrin swallowed in fear.

They knew this man well; Caleb, formally the most feared emissary of the First itself, but destroyed by the combined power of Angelus and the Prime Slayer herself in a battle almost a year ago.

Evidently, his death had been exaggerated.

"Time to die," he smirked at them, as he raised one fist and turned towards the nearest Sahvrin.


"You're kidding me, right?" Buffy said, looking at the man standing opposite her with an incredulous expression on her face. "All this medical technology at your disposal, and all that you can determine is that something's missing! Can't you at least tell us what!"

The man looked like he was about retaliate with some kind of biting comment, but seeing the rage on the faces of the four (Or should that be three, given that one of them was there in two different forms) Slayers, he decided to just be honest. After all, two of them (Or one, depending on how you wanted to view it) were in love with one of the victims, a third was in love with the other, and the fourth regarded both of the unconscious people in the next room as close friends.

"Well. it's d-definitely something mental, rather t-than anything p-physical," he explained nervously, as he pulled up a couple of charts from a machine behind him and laid them down on his desk. "A-as these show," he said, indicating a dark area on the charts, that appeared to show a human head as viewed from the top, "something in their minds must h-have somehow been extracted by that…. beam that you m-mentioned."

"And we just figured out what it was!" Fred yelled as she came charging into the room, a large, leather-bound book clasped in her hands.

"What?" Kennedy asked, anxiously looking over at the young scientist. "What did it do?"

"Xander and I found out who the demon was," Fred said, as she laid the book down on a nearby desk and indicated the picture of Duelle on one page before she turned to the text.

"So… what's his beef?" Faith asked, looking at the book curiously.

"Well, firstly, I checked over the effects of the extraction beam on the subject, and you'll pleased to know that there shouldn't be any ill effects; Angel and Willow should be up and about in a couple of hours," Fred said, looking at everyone with a rather pathetic attempt at a smile on her face.

"But what did it do!" PastBuffy yelled at the woman, unable to think clearly any more; what had that… thing done to Angel?

And Willow, obviously, but she was more concerned about the love of her life right now…

"Well, according to the files, Duelle's main power is the ability to extract the basic evil in humanity's nature and turn it into a separate personality," Fred explained, indicating certain parts of the book as she spoke. "However, the dark side has to have been given a separate existence- at least been the one in charge of the body- at some point in the past, otherwise all the ray will do is daze an opponent for a time-"

"Wait a moment," Buffy said, raising one hand to stop Fred before she could go any further. "It gives a person's dark side a separate existence if it's already been released?"

"Oh God…" PastBuffy said, as she and her future self stared at each other. "Did… did Willow…?"

"Oh yeah; just last year, in fact," Buffy said, as she turned to look at Faith, Kennedy and Fred. "We're in trouble."


"So, you understand the situation you shall be dealing with?" Cyvus asked Hamilton, as he watched the glow surrounding the man fade as the Partners completed the spell of transference.

"Yes, I'm sure I understand what you are asking of me, Cyvus," Hamilton sighed. "All I need to do is make contact-"

"Wrong from the start," a voice said from off to the side.

"What?" Hamilton said, as he and Cyvus turned in the direction of the voice…

And stared in horror at the two figures standing there.

One of them was a young woman, maybe half a head or so shorter then the man, beside her, dressed in dark trousers and a dark blue jacket, with black hair, slight veins visible all over her face, and- most disturbing of all- pitch-black eyes.

However, the man was the one who really drew their attention, given that, in every obvious manner, he was the complete physical double of Angelus, save for the fact that his eyes lacked the typical gleam that indicated the presence of the soul…

The man grinned.

"Good day, guys," he said, as he put an apparently affectionate arm around the woman. "Name's Angelus, this is Willow, and we shall be your murderers this evening."