Rowan fell for what felt like an eternity – a feeling that was hauntingly familiar to him. It was not entirely unlike what he had experienced right after the Sealing when he found himself in the Void. This time though, his fall ended on a sloping, metal surface instead of a nothingness without boundaries. He fell on his side, luckily not the wounded one but still he felt a rib crack. The bag fell out of his grasp and started rolling on the surface until it suddenly disappeared from view as it fell over an edge. Rowan himself also started sliding down but he managed to stop his motion just before he would have followed his meagre belongings. It was dark but a quick glance after a few painful breaths told him he had landed on the roof of a large cottage, or possibly a small house.

There was no easy way to do it, so he braced himself and rolled off the roof, trying to land in a crouch to absorb most of the landing shock with his legs. His attempt would have succeeded more or less without hitch if not for the fact that on landing, the barrel of a pump-action shotgun was pointed at his head by a grim-looking older man standing in the open and illuminated doorway to the house.

Trusting that Morgaine was skilled and powerful enough to accomplish a near-pinpoint intercontinental teleport, he hazarded a guess.

"Mr Hogan, I assume?" he managed to ask through clenched teeth. Looking beyond the large-bore weapon he saw that the man holding it was flanked by a stout woman wearing an apron. "Mrs Hogan, how charming."

He heard the tell-tale sound of the safety being disabled. Staying on his hands and knees, he raised his eyes to look at the man directly in the eyes.

"Faith," he said simply. "If you know of her, she might have mentioned me. My name is Rowan."

The gun stayed aimed at his head without wavering.

"What's your nickname?" the woman asked sharply.

"She calls me 'Bright Eyes'," Rowan answered honestly and clambered slowly to his feet. "I call her Sunray."

When the barrel of the shotgun finally lowered to point at the ground beside the man's feet, Rowan let out a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding. His first instinct had been to block the barrel with Earth but he had to quickly dismiss that as he appeared to be still too disoriented from whatever Morgaine had done to transport him here to be able to focus on the Elements. Maybe the ad-hoc healing the Priestess had performed on him also had something to do with it. That aside, he had already been shot once today and wasn't looking for a repeat performance anytime soon. Long-lived or not, that didn't necessarily mean he could survive, for example, a point-blank shot in the head from a 12-gauge shotgun.

But now, with the initial hostilities over, the old couple seemed to have forgotten his presence for the moment, although he appeared to be the topic of their current argument.

"Faith said he was 'quite good looking', remember?" Lynn demanded her husband.

"Yes, but..."

"Well, use your eyes, you old geezer! No human has eyes like that, and Faith said he belonged to some ancient race of demons."

"Hmph, if he's a demon I'd better just shoot him on general principles," Kenneth harrumphed.

"Ummm... Excuse me...?" Rowan tried to interject.

"Don't you dare!" Lynn shouted. "Faith said she loves him."

Shrugging his shoulders Rowan turned away from the bickering couple and took his first steps on the soil of Selenia since departing it for the Lower realm with Aurora 26,500 years ago as time passed in this reality. He started walking away from the Hogans' front yard in the direction of the gravel road which led to the top of the hill.

"Hey!" Mr Hogan called after him. "Where do you think you're going, demon?"

"Up there," Rowan answered without looking back. "A rebel faction within the Council instigated a coup today. They attacked the leadership in London and me in Scotland. Their leader hinted at a strike against the Slayers and you as well. That's why I'm here, now. For Faith."

There might have been an answer but suddenly sounds of fighting came to their ears from the top of the hill. He didn't wait any longer. Pushing away the pain he started running up the road. If he was going to be shot in the back, then by... his Great Aunt, he would crawl the rest of the way. But he was going to make it to the top – to Faith.

Kenneth Hogan watched the receding back of the demon with a hard scowl on his face. The dark-skinned apparition had not hesitated even a second when he heard the sound of fighting coming down from the mansion. He was just about to start following the demon – Rowan, was it? – when he glimpsed movement on the other side of Tuhingamata Road. Several larger than human shapes started crossing the road, aiming for the open gate to their private road.

He raised the shotgun again in grim determination. By his side his wife had reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a Glock 17L handgun.

"Well, Lieutenant Commander Hogan," he winked at his wife. "Seems the old sailors will venture into sea once again."

"Warrant Officer Hogan, you read my mind," Lynn smiled at her husband and chambered the first bullet with practiced ease.

Faith woke up in her bed, instantly awake. Her Slayer sense was buzzing faintly but very, very insistently. There were multiple dark presences in the vicinity, still distant but getting closer. As she quickly dressed herself, someone knocked on her door quietly but urgently. A few seconds later she heard the door opposite hers – Miyoko's – being knocked on as well. She moved quickly to the door and saw an ashen-faced Patricia in the hallway just outside her door.

"Trisha?" Faith whispered while zipping and buttoning her cargo-pants. The other door opened as well and Miyoko stepped out into the hallway in full ninja outfit, holding the sheathed katana in her hand.

"My wards were penetrated a few minutes ago," the young Witch told them anxiously. "Multiple breaches."

"Where?" Miyoko queried.

"Everywhere," Trisha answered wide-eyed. "Mostly east and south, beyond the hedgerows."

"So, what's the plan, Sureiyā-san?" Miyoko asked the Slayer out of the blue.

"What?" Faith gasped. "Plan? Me?" She was just gonna go out there and do damage.

"You're the Slayer," Miyoko stated, her eyes hard. "We follow you."

'What, what, what? Me lead?' Faith thought in rising panic. 'I'm no leader. What if I make a mistake?'

She was just about to tell Miyoko and the young Witch that they shouldn't expect her to lead them but fell silent at the expectant and most of all trusting look in the eyes of her companions.

She balled her hands into fists so hard that the knuckles popped and drew a few calming breaths, like she had practiced.

"Ok," she started with a new-found conviction. "Trisha, indoors. Wake up Dr Kiwi and Switchboard, and keep them safe. Bar the doors and windows as much as you can. Cat-Hands, the perimeter. Try to keep them away from the main building. If they threaten to overwhelm you, retreat inside behind Trisha's protections."

"You?" Miyoko asked.

"Me?" Faith grinned like a predator and unsheathed the Spirit Blade. In her other hand she twirled a stake around her fingers. "I'm going to go out there and show them what it means to fuck with the Slayer and hers."

Miyoko stepped over the corpse of the large creature she had just eviscerated with two quick diagonal slashes forming an X-shape across its torso. She wiped the blood off her brow, panting a little from exertion. A beheaded werewolf and another corpse, slashed almost in two at the waist, littered the front yard and still she heard noises in the distance, heralding the approach of several more creatures.

A dark shape running up their road in the full moon's light caught her attention and she positioned herself to meet this new attack with her sword raised. To her surprise this new arrival also had a katana tied to its back. When the figure spotted her, it slowed down to a rapid walk but continued determinedly onwards.

"Move aside, Ms Nagisa. I'm here for Faith," Rowan growled, realizing there was no way he could convince the woman before it might be too late.

"You have to get past me first, fucker," Miyoko responded.

"I don't have the time nor the inclination to fight you. There are more of those closer to your level coming in. My name is Rowan. Now, let me through."

Miyoko snorted. There was no way her opponent could be who he said he was. "In your dreams maybe, hell-spawn. Your glamour won't fool me. Prepare yourself to meet cold steel."

"If I must, I will cut you down, for her," Rowan snapped and unsheathed his Howard Clark blade.

The unsheathing and the subsequent movements of the blade to the initial position of an attack form made Miyoko blink twice. No demon should be this disciplined. And the blade he held...

"Last chance," the demon warned her. To her it was a challenge.

"Too late." Miyoko spat and engaged with an upward diagonal slash.

Twenty seconds. It had taken exactly twenty seconds for Miyoko to realize her opponent was an exceptional swordsman. Their fight had already lasted close to two minutes within which they had exchanged numerous lightning-fast blows and counterattacks with their respective blades, neither being able to gain the upper hand.

Panting with the physical exercise and the pain his previous injuries were causing, Rowan gritted his teeth and focused all his swordsman skills on his opponent. She was phenomenal, truly a worthy opponent under different circumstances. Then, almost in synch, both of them flicked their gaze down the gravel road. Three tall skeletal figures wielding what looked like obsidian-tipped short spears, flanked by two more werewolves and what looked like three dark-clad humans were lazily approaching them. How on earth could Wyndam-Pryce and his rebel faction have gotten their hands on such a contingent of dark creatures halfway around the Earth? Then it occurred to him, like a bolt from a clear sky.

'Morgaine.'

"Truce?" he suggested when he saw his opponent lick her lips nervously on the new threat to them.

"I may regret this, but I don't see a choice here," Miyoko growled but switched her stance to face their incoming foes. "This isn't over by a long shot, demon. Take my word as a hereditary ninja for it."

"I will be at your disposal anytime you wish it, Ms Nagisa, provided you'll survive this."

"Me?" Miyoko asked incredulously. "Don't make me laugh, Brown-Skin."

"You talk too much, Nagisa no kimi. More fighting – less commentary."

Miyoko gaped as her opponent/partner flowed into an easy defensive posture. 'How could he know...?'

Faith was both grinning in satisfaction and panting in exhaustion as the dark creatures fell before her, either pierced by her stake or sliced into gory pieces by the Spirit Blade. The foes had been approaching the compound from beyond the hedgerows as a somewhat coherent team, and at first she had gaped when the moonlight revealed the steadily approaching dark creatures. But, after that... it'd been Slayer time.

She was limping lightly and a wound in her side was drenching her top when she finally reached the gate in the hedgerow back to the compound. Opening it, she almost collapsed in shock. 'No, no, no... it's not possible... fuck no, no way...,' the thoughts flashed through her mind.

There, in the front yard, two of the four people that meant more to her than anything else in the world were facing two willowy-slender creatures who seemed to be mostly impervious to the lightning-fast attacks the two sword-wielding smaller figures were dealing on them. Most of the front yard was a slaughter-zone. Slaughtered werewolves and beheaded or eviscerated creatures littered the ground while the two blade-masters kept weaving an almost impenetrable barrier of steel between them and the two hideous creatures who seemed to pay no heed to their own survival and kept flicking their short spears at their opponents with lightning-like speed.

Rowan was tiring fast – the partly-healed gunshot wound and the broken rib were rapidly taxing his endurance, not to mention a freshly bleeding bite in his shoulder. During the skirmish, one of the werewolves had managed to sneak in a lucky bite before a dual-slash aimed at its neck had beheaded it cleanly. Silver or no, a headless werewolf was a dead werewolf.

"You're wounded!" Miyoko had gasped at seeing the bleeding bite. "That was..."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," Rowan had hissed through clenched teeth at her.

The bite wound hurt like a bitch, but it was still more a bother than a real threat. They were fighting back-to-back, now fully able to rely on each other. The hide of the thin, skeletal creatures was almost impenetrable – it was only through luck and incredible accuracy that he and Miyoko had managed to kill one of them. Behind the creatures the remaining dark figures were both waiting for them to be overwhelmed by their opponents and looking for a way inside the mansion.

It should have lasted but after only a few minutes Rowan heard a shocked gasp and the tell-tale sound of a steel blade hitting the ground from behind him. He was all but pinned himself but still hazarded a quick look.

Miyoko, impaled by the spear wielded by her opponent, her arms and legs losing all strength. Something snapped within Rowan.

Air.

Earth.

Fire.

Water.

He wove them heedless of the excruciating pain in his body and the deeply ingrained warning in his mind.

'The first law of Elemental Magic is, you don't mix the elements,' the harsh words of Armidanyan echoed in his head. 'The second law of Elemental Magic is, You. Do. Not. Mix. The. Elements. The third law of Elemental Magic is, YOU DO NOT MIX THE ELEMENTS!

'... Maybe it's not a law at all... more like rule... or perhaps even just a guideline. Oh, hell...'

'It was a perfectly-contained Apocalypse,' Faith realized much later. But witnessing it first-hand filled her with just horror. Miyoko had fallen, skewered like a roast, and then... hell was unleashed. Around Rowan, the two creatures... and humans farther away were slashed into multiple gory pieces by invisible blades, impaled by sharp rocks emerging from the earth that suddenly resembled quicksand and incinerated by small tornadoes of fire. On and on it went with Rowan falling to his knees with an agonizing scream emerging from his mouth. Faith was close to throwing up but then she realized she was the only one left standing in the yard.

Heedless of her own safety, she sprinted across the remaining distance and crouched down in front of Rowan, grabbing his shoulders. Looking into his eyes she saw no recognition in them.

"Bright Eyes, it's me. Please!' she shouted a desperate plea.

At first, all she could feel was just grim determination to decimate all foes who threatened his heart and spirit but then – a blink – and it was like a barrier had been dropped.

"Sholae... Sunray? You're...?"

"I'm mostly unharmed. Please, come back to me."

Like at the snap of fingers the hell on earth taking place in the front yard of the mansion ceased and Rowan keeled over next to the severely wounded Miyoko.