Disclaimer: I do not own Buffyverse or anything else you may recognize
Thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed or reviewed this fic so far.
I know I'd said I'd finish this on Wednesday but decided Saturday worked best due to the original update schedule of only Saturdays.
Here we are at the end, couldn't have done it without you all.
Before we start, let's take a moment to remember those who were killed in the recent tragedy in Texas. Just saddening and horrifying really.
Screw Loose: Yes, I agree with Neal there and am impressed by him. Typical Hollywood, cutting out people who don't agree with their views.
Chapter 139- Some plans
The Scoobies and their future selves sat down in the dining room for one last time, as Buffy said. "Well, that was that then."
"And since you called us here, I've a feeling that final battle didn't go too well", Willow noted.
"It's a bit more complicated than that", Summers told them with a sigh. "The four of them fought long and hard, but eventually, they were going to lose. Gunn got turned."
That got the expected shocked looks as Xander said. "Damn! A former Vampire hunter, now a Vampire himself, a soulless one, must have sucked for him."
"Did he have to be dusted?" Dawnster inquired.
"Actually, no, the Senior Partners eventually sent the entirety of LA into a Hell Dimension, while putting up a glamor to make the outside world think LA was still around", Maclay revealed, this increasing the shock of everyone. "So all of them ended up in a Hell Dimension. And Angel was turned human by them magically."
"At a time like that? That would have been bad", Giles noted.
"Yes, basically, Angel was a human, and stayed in Hyperion, using some old magical artefacts to give the impression he was still a Vampire. Spike took an area of LA and became sort of a Lord there, people being brought to him for protection, and he protected them. Illyria was with him too, and she had some uncontrollable bouts, randomly transforming into Fred at times", Dawn tried to explain all of it to them. "Connor, Nina and Gwen became a team, saving people and sending them to Spike. Lorne hadn't left before this, so he ended up staying close to Spike's place as well, while Groo returned at this point to help. And like Lilah, Wesley's contract extended beyond death too."
"Oh no!" Tara spoke for everyone. "Couldn't even rest in peace after his passing."
"He didn't deserve that", Buffy muttered.
"They sent him to Angel to try to work it out, Wesley tried his best to help Angel there. By the way, the Dragon he wanted to kill was actually brainwashed too, he helped the Dragon break out of it and it became his friend, and well, it accidentally got named 'Cordelia'", Summers added, just increasing the surprise for everyone.
"A male Dragon calling itself Cordelia, never thought I'd see the day", Xander quipped.
"They never actually found out what happened to Gunn though. Meanwhile, seeing Wesley made Illyria worse for a while. Gunn attacked people under the pretext of saving them, and eventually found and turned Gwen", Rosenberg narrated, horrifying the past people more. "And no one knew Gwen had been turned either, so she betrayed the group to Vampire Gunn, and Angel tricked Gunn into killing him. He met Cordelia in the afterlife who encouraged him and sent him back. The Partners' plan was still reliant on Angel so they did a temporal loop and turned time back to before the fall of LA, so things were fine, but everyone retained the memory of the Hell Dimension."
"Meaning Gunn remembered all he did as a Vampire", Tara sighed sadly, speaking for everyone, as they all felt bad for Gunn. He'd done horrible things as a Vampire, and now he was back to normal, left to feel guilty for his actions.
"Wesley's contract got destroyed by Dragon fire though, so he was allowed to be at peace", Harris told them, which relieved them.
"Well, that's one good thing at least", Buffy said.
"However, all of this affected Angel's mental state, and an entity calling itself Twilight possessed him, making him a masked supervillain", Maclay now said, horrifying the group once more. "It was an entity prophesized to create a new Dimension, and needed an Ensouled Vampire…" she turned to Buffy "…and a Slayer!"
"Meaning…" Buffy trailed off.
"Us…." Summers nodded. "In secret, Twilight Angel kept coming at us, trying to draw us to the Seed of Wonder, which is-"
"The Source of all Magic, right?" Willow asked, getting more nods. "So, its not a myth then?"
"Oh no, its actually in the ruins of Sunnydale itself", Rosenberg told them, once more giving them an unexpected surprise.
"Why did he lead us there?" Tara inquired.
"Basically, destroying it with the M? that only a Slayer can properly wield would send out a powerful shockwave that would empower him enough to come out on his own, and then he would transform this world into his Dimension, some sort of utopia, but we all would have died, as he was creating a new Dimension from scratch", Dawn told the group. "So we had to fight him, and Spike joined us."
"What happened?" Dawnster asked, though she dreaded the answer already.
Summers turned to Giles, some tears in her eyes. "You died." Giles processed it, his eyes widening as his brain finally caught up with what he'd just been told, and the rest processed it too.
"Bloody hell!" Giles snapped, now realizing why his future self wasn't here.
"Giles…." Buffy whispered, holding his hand, tears in her own eyes now, while the rest of the Scoobies looked struck by this piece of info as well.
"No…." Willow whispered.
"Then Spike died in the fight too", Summers said, swallowing a lump in her throat, Buffy letting out a loud cry on hearing that, and the rest were no better.
"At that point, Cordy broke the PTB rules and interfered, getting through to Angel's mind and encouraging him to fight the possession", Harris continued the narration.
"But it was too strong, so, Angel killed himself to stop it, and that's how Twilight finally left us all alone", Maclay finished the story, seeing the stricken looks on the faces of the past selves.
"We thought this was the Apocalypse, and it was over now, but before leaving, Cordy revealed this wasn't it, and now with Angel and Spike both gone, it may not be stopped in time", Summers added, letting the gravity of the situation dawn on them.
The past Scoobies were going through a variety of emotions in this time- disbelief, anger, sadness, fear, but eventually, all of their faces scrunched up in determination instead.
"If this is how things go, we will have to stop it", Buffy finally declared firmly. "Change things."
"And not die trying", Tara added from her end.
"You got any plans?" Rosenberg asked. "Also, Twilight Angel killed Andrew."
"No more than he deserves", Willow said with a scoff.
"First, expose Lindsey and Eve in time, then save Cordy, and save Fred as well", Buffy listed it out. "But from what you say, Illyria did become a powerful ally in time, right?"
"Yeah, good loyal ally, and she began to hate herself eventually because Fred died to give her life", Harris added. "That shows change."
"Meaning she is capable of change", Dawnster noted.
"You got some plan or what?" Dawn inquired.
"I think I do", Willow gave a vindictive smirk. "Let's just call it poetic justice."
"I'm sure its gonna be well-deserved", Summers noted. "For the Black Thorn-"
"We will save those who died, main thing is Senior Partners, and its obvious outside of Cordy when she became one, the PTB don't really care", Tara commented with a sigh. "At least not much."
"They are not evil, but they are not good either, they have their own agenda that we still don't know", Rosenberg said to them.
"Meaning we cannot rely on them for help, obviously, that was never an option, considering you had to bring us here to show us everything", Giles noted that.
"That is something for which we might need help of the entire organization", Willow told them all. "If all of us battle, we can the fight and Partners won't do any banishing."
"That's correct", Maclay agreed with that course of action. "Which leaves Twilight. So before possessing Angel, it possessed random people in LA till it got closer to Angel."
"Meaning we need to pinpoint someone and banish Twilight from him", Buffy realized. "So that's these things done, but let's hope our plan goes accordingly."
"If it gets messed up…." Giles trailed off, but it was clear. If in trying to fix this, they messed it up even worse, things would not bode well for them, or the timeline.
"Well, this is it", Summers said finally. "The end of the recordings, and you know what happened after these too."
"Prevent it, and save everyone", Dawn added. "Good luck."
"Yeah, you're gonna need that", Harris had to agree.
"We trust you can do it", Maclay assured.
"So don't disappoint", Rosenberg finished it up.
"We'll do our best not to", Willow told them.
"Yeah, meticulous planning and execution to the point will help out here", Tara nodded in agreement too.
"And that's exactly what we're gonna do", Xander said.
"So, time to start working this all out then", Giles commented.
"As long as I'm not sent to Rome", Dawnster added to some chuckles.
"All right then, thank you", Buffy said to all the future people. "For what you did here, we will change it all on going back and make sure it never happens."
Her voice was firm and dedicated, she and the rest were going to make sure this dark future did not come to pass.
No more words were exchanged. Summers simply nodded at her past self, then turned to Rosenberg and Maclay, as they held hands, magic glowing from them.
The magic surrounded the past Scoobies, covering them, and a projection of a clock appeared, ticking backwards.
Then there was a bright flash of light, and when it faded, the past Scoobies were gone.
"Let's hope they can do it", Summers muttered, exchanging a look with her friends, all of them trusting their past selves to succeed where they had failed due to not having all this info.
Until then, they were going to continue fighting the good fight in this timeline.
Because that was the job.
Finally, after almost 2 years of writing and posting, this story is over at last, and I got a lot of love and support for which I can't thank any of you enough.
Anyways, outside of 'After the Fall' and 'Angel and Faith', I legit hate all of the Buffyverse follow-up comics. And even 'Angel and Faith' needed the horrible Buffy Season 8 to come into existence.
All these comics do is crap on characters and their established characterizations, and derail all character arcs. Here are my worst issues with the comics- Continuing the Angel/Buffy/Spike love triangle (even TVD stopped the Stefan/Elena/Damon love triangle at one point, and when I praise TVDverse over Buffyverse, there's a problem), Xander/Dawn (URRRRRRRRGHHH! The fact that this couple was the only one to get a happy ending is just distasteful. Only Joss Whedon can think of something this disgusting), Giant Dawn (Dawn would NEVER cheat on someone with such flimsy logic, plus more 'let's punish women for sex' crap by Joss), the Twilight Angel plotline (treating Angel like crap and it felt like they were trying to validate his haters or something), banging a Universe into existence (more Bangel crap and this was just EEEWWWWW!), and Willow cheating once more (it was OOC the first time in itself. Now sure, anyone is better than Bitchedy, which BTW NEVER HAPPENED, but so OOC for Willow), and a lot of other crap.
The fact that what was done to Cordelia in Angel Season 4 is still worse than all of this speaks volumes.
Frankly, these comics are just bad and were better off never existing, except 'After the Fall'. I'd say 'Angel and Faith' but can't acknowledge Buffy Season 8 at all. Out of Buffyverse, Smallville and Charmed, only Smallville had good follow-up comics that respected the show and its characters and character arcs, and had some amazing plotlines.
Buffyverse comics, I've said it all above already, and let's not talk about the Charmed comics at all.
So hope my modified versions of how these went down made sense, made more sense than the actual Buffy Season 8 anyways, since the follow-up comics were a waste of pages.
Anyways, enough ranting, this long story is done at last, and I am glad a lot of people enjoyed this. Writing all of one of my most favorite shows of all time like this was an amazing experience for me, and while exhausting, I'll still miss watching the show and writing for it here. Of course I'll be re-watching the show, except Season 4, a lot more for a long time, due to my love for it.
So, thank you so very much to everyone for the favorites, follows, reviews, kudos, hits, comments, bookmarks, and all of the love and support you people gave me, couldn't have done it without you all being there for me.
And one day, we will see each other again with the sequel to this (unless you also read other stories of mine), but, this was a hell of an amazing ride too.
Thanks a lot people, and goodbye. Stay safe and take care, and well-wishes to all of you and your families.
Until next time.
Aragorn II Elessar.