Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I only borrow the characters and situations of the Whedonverse for my selfish pleasure (and hopefully yours).
Summary: The merging and continuation of BtVS and AtS. Starts just after 'The Girl in Question,' 5.20, and continues from there.
Recap: Buffy made a phone call to a certain evil law firm and reached Harmony. They had a deep and meaningful conversation where secrets were revealed, mainly those regarding the next apocalypse. Now Buffy has a new objective, has called an emergency Scooby meeting, and is planning to visit her favorite Watcher.
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Eighteen hours later and Buffy felt like she was ready to drop dead from exhaustion. And, apparently so did everyone else.
Dawn, who'd also been out on the town last night, was diligently trying to keep her drooping eyelids open as she stared at her computer screen. Giles and Andrew were in the corner with piles upon piles of books surrounding them as they searched for prophecies and any references to the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart. Kennedy had long ago given up trying to stay awake, as her head now rested on the large table that dominated the study. An occasional snoring could be heard coming from her direction as well. Faith, who had declared that research wasn't really her thing, had gone down to Giles's training room for a long workout session to work off some energy. And Buffy, who also was no good at the research thing, didn't have the energy to work anything off at this point, so she was merely hear for moral support as she waited for any info.
The only person who hadn't fizzled out was Willow, whose fingers were still flying over her keyboard as they had been for the past several hours.
The only person missing was Xander, who hadn't shown just yet.
Thank the Powers that Giles still had his Council connections and sole access to the overflowing accounts left behind by the former Watchers. It was certainly a resource that they all relied on. How else were the Scoobies able to have the cozy accommodations they all took advantage of, as they'd scattered throughout the world in their quest to find and train new Slayers?
For Buffy, obviously it was the apartment in Rome and Dawn's private school tuition. For Faith and Principal Wood, er, Robin, it was the newly renovated, 3-storie warehouse in Cleveland where they housed and trained the largest number of Slayers. For Willow and Kennedy, it was a series of posh hotel rooms they stayed in as they traveled South America in their search for newbies. Xander, well, he didn't have a permanent residence in Africa. For all they knew, he was living in a hut in the middle of the Sudan. But, hey, at least he got the cool new jeep and all the high-tech camping gear one male could want.
But most importantly, those funds could get them to wherever they needed to go, whenever they needed it. Like, oh say, when the world's about to end?
No layovers, no customs, and no red tape. Just make a phone call to Daddy Giles and it was as good as done. It was perfect for emergency Scooby meetings such as this.
She, Andrew, and Dawn had arrived in London only two hours after her call to the States. They'd pulled up outside of a stately residence in the oldest part of the city, the place that Giles resided and trained his batch of twenty-two Slayers. The Euro-Brigade, he called them.
After rounds of hugs and fervent greetings as Giles met them at the door, they'd headed into the study and had been researching ever since in an attempt to learn all they could about Wolfram and Hart. Andrew had been in contact with his people in L.A. several times and had learned nothing good. Angel, it seemed, was doing all he could to battle for the forces of evil, which left the rest of them with the major wiggins.
After all, he still had his soul.
When Willow and Kennedy had arrived at Giles's house about seven hours ago, and after more hugs and greetings, Buffy had asked that she use her Wiccan powers to check if she could find out about Angel's soul status.
After some chanting, stinky herbs, and even a pretty light show, she imparted the good news that his soul was still anchored to him.
Which only left more questions for the incredibly confused group.
How was it possible that he was doing all these horrific things and still have a conscience? And what were the Senior Partners planning? When was this apocalypse going down, anyway? And, more importantly to Buffy, what did Spike's return to the land of the not-so-living have to do with any of it?
These seemed to be the questions of the night and they were no closer to finding their answers.
Faith, who'd left Robin in Cleveland to handle the girls and had shown up an hour after Willow and Kennedy, chose that minute to bound into the room, startling the quiet contemplative atmosphere with her exerted panting, as she was apparently done with the workout she'd indulged in.
"Hey B, any late-breaking news?"
Buffy gave a weary sigh. "Not yet, but Willow and Dawn are trying to hack into their system to learn more. They've been at it for hours now, so something's bound to come up soon."
"Hey, guys, I think I got something." This came from an excited Willow, making everyone jump at the unexpected loudness of her voice.
"See, I told ya," said Buffy as she smiled smugly at Faith and received an eye-roll in return.
The room's occupants began to move for the first time in forever, it seemed. Giles and Andrew unfolded themselves from the chairs in the corner where they'd been absorbed in the dusty books. Dawn stood up from her own place before her laptop to look over Willow's shoulder. Kennedy slowly lifted her head from the table and stared around uncomprehendingly. Buffy stood and stretched from where she'd been slumped half asleep in the too small chair by the doorway. She and Faith came to stand behind Willow's other shoulder to stare at the computer screen, neither making sense of its secrets.
"What have you found?" asked Giles hopefully.
"Well, I managed to access their network and get into Angel's personal computer files using the name Connor for his password."
Buffy gave a snort of amusement before quipping, "Well, that's wicked obvious!"
At everyone's pointed looks she muttered, "Sorry, sorry...jeez, no need to get all aggro on me..."
"Well, all the files were heavily encrypted, so they were pretty much useless to us. But once I figured the pattern out, it was cake. Anyway, there's all this mention to a society called The Circle of the Black Thorn, whose mission statement seems to include, among other things, world domination."
Giles immediately went for his books as Willow kept talking. "And, look here at all the data he's collected on its members: evil senators, demon sorcerers, and so on. It seems he's been watching these players pretty carefully and taking really good notes. It also has an outlined plan of how to take them down, how to penetrate The Circle. He's been trying to gain their trust by making deals with them so that he can find out more about them."
"This is good Will, really good. At least we know what Angel's up to and he's not actually planning to help bring on Armageddon. Any idea when this Circle take-down thingy is gonna happen?"
"Um, no. But, from what we've learned from Andrew's contacts, the plan he's implemented is already in affect, so it has to be very soon, like within the next couple of days soon."
"Well, that doesn't leave us a whole lotta time to jump in and save the day." This came from Faith.
"Your right, and we still don't even know if Angel and Co. want our help. After all, he never called us. But we can't just sit here while this whole thing goes down."
Giles clicked his tongue in exasperation, which meant he had something to say. "Buffy, whether or not Angel wants our help is irrelevant. We're talking about the end of the world here and we cannot just stand by and let it happen because he has a chip on his shoulder. We have to act quickly in order to stop whatever—,"
"I know Giles, and we will. But first we need to know what we're facing here. I don't want us to go charging in all half-cocked, or fully-cocked, or any kind of..." she cleared her throat in embarrassment at her choice of words when everyone's eyes were about to bug out of their heads. "Anyway, hybrid demon robot, First Evil, Hell God stuck in a human body, take your pick, but I'd like to know 'cause any of those we can deal with."
"Or maybe, it's like in that episode of Star Trek—," started Andrew hopefully.
"I highly doubt it..." interrupted Giles quickly, knowing that if they didn't put a stop to it now, they'd never hear the end of the Star Trek references.
"It could happen," Andrew quietly muttered in defense of himself. His only response was the collective eye-roll from everyone in the room. He huffed off to his chair in the corner and threw himself into it, arms crossed in petulance.
"Oh yah, that's gonna help," snorted Kennedy in disgust of Andrew's actions. "Throwing temper tantrums is the surefire way to beat whatever's coming."
"Hey—,"
"Guys!" shouted Buffy, in an attempt to stop the quarreling that was bound to erupt. "Can we not do this right now? We have more important things to figure out—."
"Wow! It sounds like old times in here," said a familiar but long unheard voice coming from the doorway.
"Xander!" Dawn and Willow exclaimed in unison, as everyone rushed him for the requisite hugging that would occur. Everyone had their turns. Even Giles, the usually unemotional Brit, had a giddy grin on his face as he gave Xander a huge bear hug.
"I'm so glad you're here," he said, no doubt happy to have another male around that wasn't in the habit of referencing Sci-Fi characters. "I wasn't sure if you'd gotten my call."
"Of course I did. You flash the Bat Signal, and I come a runnin'. I even tried to find a donut shop after I left the airport, but it didn't work out so well. England sucks, by the way."
Giles was pushed out of the way by an eager Andrew as he too threw his arms around Xander in excitement and said, "I missed you so much!"
Buffy knew it was probably true because Xander was the only one who ever got his Sci-Fi references. And the way Andrew and Giles got on, well, she was surprised she hadn't had to referee the too common bickering. Plus, he was just a big nerd, but somehow Xander, despite his lack of sensitivity at times, understood him. Andrew appreciated that.
"Uh...thanks Andrew. I, uh, missed you too?" he offered, but still visibly uncomfortable with the perceived threat to his masculinity by Andrew's emotional display.
As he disentangled himself from Andrew's grasp, Xander smiled at Buffy since she had been waiting for everyone else before she got her own hug in. As she squeezed him hard, forgetting her own strength yet again, she could feel her eyes start to water. He looked good, had lost weight while trekking through Africa, as well as sporting a dark tan now. And he still had his eye patch, which just made her feel guilty and sad that she hadn't been able to stop Caleb in time before he'd lost his eye.
But he was here, like everyone else, and he looked happy about it.
"Hey Buff, still need to breathe," he wheezed out.
"Oh! Sorry, it's just so good to see you," she said as she slyly rubbed at her moist eye before he or anyone else could notice her shiny tears forming.
"So, what's the what, then? Fill me in. I missed most of the party, but I wanna hear the goods!" Willow and Andrew started explaining what they'd found out so far, and Buffy went to check with how Dawn was doing as she was tiredly watching everyone from hooded eyes.
"Hey Dawnie, how're you doing?" she asked as she smoothed her sister's long hair away from her face.
"Tired, and kinda stiff from sitting for so long. Buffy, what are we gonna do about this? I mean, do you have any plans?"
"I don't know, Dawnie, but we'll come up with something. We always do. Why don't you go lay down and get some rest. Something tells me we're gonna need it. I'll come get you when we think of something, k?" Dawn nodded, gave her sister a hug and slowly made her way out of the room, saying goodnight to everyone and sparing Xander another hug before leaving.
Faith sauntered over to her and Buffy watched her friends interacting with one another, laughing with one another despite the impending doom that clouded this reunion. Xander had been right; this was like old times. The late night Scooby meetings trying to figure out the next Big Bad, the jokes, the quips, and the affection between them all. It was something she'd dearly missed and hadn't realized till just now.
It made her think about the people that should be in this room with them, but weren't. Anya, Tara, her mom, the potentials that had died, and Spike. All were warriors in some way or another, and all had fallen in this war they continued to fight. They all deserved to be here, maybe even more than she did.
But, Spike was back, her heart screamed at her at full blast. Buffy wondered if it would stop doing that when she finally found him, when she could finally make him believe how she felt, how much he was a part of her. How much she needed him.
"So, any ideas?" Faith asked, interrupting her reverie.
"Nope...you?"
"Nada here, girlfriend. But I'm not used to making the decisions like you are, and thank God for that. I don't think I could take the pressure." Buffy smiled, sadly, wondering how she'd been able to take the pressure for so long. Her and her small group of friends, saving the world. At least now there were plenty of Slayers to share the burden of keeping the world safe from evil.
They were startled by Andrew's shout of utter glee as he obviously found something worthwhile after he'd commandeered Dawn's laptop. Everyone crowded around, curious to see what he'd discovered.
"I found a memo hidden in a file on another computer from Wolfram and Hart's network addressed to someone named Hamilton. It seems that it's directly from the Senior Partners themselves. It is a warning of what will happen if he does not manage to stop Angel's secret plan to infiltrate The Circle of the Black Thorn. Blah, blah, travesty against the side of evil, yada yada, no one shall survive our wrath...Same old crap every evil mastermind goes on about, but it does go on to say something about massive demon hoards being sent to destroy Angel and L.A. if Hamilton fails his mission."
Everyone was really quiet as they all took it in.
"How massive are we talkin' little man?" asked Xander. "I mean, we've all seen the Uber-vamp army, and we killed them, right?"
"Ya know, Robin and I have noticed a mass exodus of demon-types from Cleveland and the surrounding areas. It's been hard to train the new Slayers when there are no baddies to battle. Maybe they're all on their way to L.A.," suggested Faith.
"And if so, we can most likely assume that this is happening all over the globe, these mass migrations. The Senior Partners have an extensive reach, and could no doubt encourage hundreds, maybe thousands of demons to visit L.A. to wreak havoc," said Giles glumly.
"So apparently the Senior partners are hip to Angel's plan," said Kennedy. Thanks for stating the obvious, thought Buffy.
Buffy could feel the fear and adrenaline shoot through her body at the plan that was forming in her head. "We need to get there, we need to warn them. Like yesterday! Giles, they can't fight this alone. This is too much for them. We need to send our armies to help!"
"I'll start calling the airlines and procuring plane tickets." Giles rushed off to do just that.
Buffy turned to look at all her friends once again, who all stared expectantly at her. Well, she thought resignedly, I guess it's time for Drill Sergeant Buffy to rear her ugly head. "Guys, I need you to call and round up all the Slayers you've been training. Every last one of them. Tell them the sitch and that we'll be in contact with their flight info by tomorrow. We're ALL going on a field trip, and believe me when I say they'll have plenty of practice battling baddies by the time we get out of this."
Everyone nodded before quickly parting ways to find a spare phone line in the massive house. Buffy grabbed Willow's arm before she could leave.
"Hey Will, I'm gonna need your help with something. First, can you contact the Coven, maybe get some extra magicky fire power? Something maybe we haven't used before, or at least something stronger?" At her nod, Buffy continued. "I also need you to write an email...if you still have a certain email address that is. I know it's been awhile, but it can really help us out here."
"Sure Buff. But whose email do you want?"
Buffy sighed, not really wanting to resort to these measures, but knowing that if she was gonna get them all through this, it was best to use every contact that they could.
"None other than that of Mr. and Mrs. Riley Finn..."