Just a quick discalimer. These characters aren't mine. they're are joss whedon's. apart from a character at the end. he's mine. :) oh and sorry about the missused words in chapter one. blame spell check! grrrrr

Chapter Two: Back Up

As Angel looked back towards the army of demons, a punch landed squarely on his jaw.

'Why does it always feel like she knocks me off my feet?' Angel thought to him self. It was then he realised that he should have said it out loud. He never got any puns in.

The Slayers jumped into the fight. Each one was knocking back the demons easily in their stride. As they burst onto the scene, the demons were falling back.

Illyria looked on at the girls as they killed demon after demon. She was intrigued. In her day there had been no slayer. What she knew she had from Fred's memories and what Wesley had explained to her. She had not believed them to be of much concern. Seeing this display of raw power however had changed her mind.

The slayers were quite simply clearing house. Every demon that attacked was sent crashing to the floor. For every blow a slayer took, the same and more was dealt back to the opposing army. Illyria was impressed. And it took much to impress the former demon goddess.

Spike was taking down a demon when he realised something. He wasn't dead. This was a strange sensation. Knowing that you should be dead, that your comrades should be slain with you.

Instead he suddenly realised that several girls were in fact helping him, Angel and Illyria.

"Slayers?" the vampire asked himself.

Of course it was slayers. They always showed up at the right time. The demon Spike was tangling with had noticed the distraction in Spikes eyes. It raised its arms, and stabbed Spike through the chest using the claws on its hands. Spike screamed in pain. It felt as if he should be dusting. The pain was exactly the same as when he had burnt up in Sunnydale, only he wasn't dying. The pain didn't go away. It just kept on coming, and coming.

Spike fell to the ground. The pain was too much. He couldn't carry on. Spike noticed Vi, one of the potentials he had shared a house with the previous year. She looked different. Almost like Buffy in her strength, showing no fear toward the enemy. All of them did. Spike felt a second wind in him self. He raised his good hand and punched out the demon. As it fell, so too did Spike.

"Bloody brilliant," he sputtered as he lost consciousness.

Angel was staring at the girl he loved. The only girl he had loved. He liked Nina, but it wasn't the same. She wasn't Buffy.

"How did you know?" the vampire asked, as he brushed himself of the dirt. The battle was falling back from the alley, with the slayers being the obvious reason.

"I told her!" a voice Angel didn't care to hear came from behind the group.

"YOU!" Angel shouted as he pelted himself towards the man.

Buffy put out an arm and stopped Angel in his tracks.

"No, stop it. We don't have time for this." She told the souled demon.

Angel stared at the man. He hated him. He had hated him since they first met.

"Fine!" Angel replied, with a hint of venom "But how did you know then?" Angel asked the man.

"The Immortal knows all!" The man replied calmly.

Angel hated the Immortal. He was the most dark, and evil man in the world to him. He hated him even when he was evil himself.

"Oh yeah, I forgot..." Angel sarcastically whispered.

The Immortal looked at the vampire with a raised eyebrow. He didn't dislike Angel. He just didn't respect him enough to care about his opinion.

Xander stepped forward, trying to disarm the hostility. Even though he hated Angel, he disliked the Immortal even more. Everyone else in the group loved him. That was the worst part.

"Look Angel, there's a slight apocalypse going on, so if you could just tell us who's out there on our side..." Xander was cut off.

"There's me, Gunn and Illyria," the vampire told them.

"Illyria?" Willow piped in. "the old one?"

"Yeah. It's a long story. She's taken over Fred's body." Angel explained.

"Wesley?" asked Giles, in a tone full of anxiousness.

While the ex-watcher hadn't been especially close with Wesley, he had kept in contact with him since he joined Angel's group.

"Dead, before all of this. All that's left is us," he explained, being careful not to mention Spike. If Andrew hadn't told Buffy about Spike, there was no use in telling her he had been alive for the last year, only to die again without seeing her.

Giles face dropped at the news of Wesley's death. While he hadn't been the most accommodating of people when they had met, there were few people Giles wished dead.

"What is this Angel? What's causing this?" Buffy asked.

Angel smirked "Didn't the immortal know?" The immortals brow rose. He didn't like the vampire's tone. "It's the senior partners. The ones who own Wolfram and Hart," Angel explained.

"Funny, I thought that was you," Giles quickly replied.

Angel looked at the former watcher. "I'm not the person who left Sunnydale five years ago Giles. I'm not intimidated by you because I murdered someone you love. You don't come to my town and take that tone with me. You wanna help me fight, you help me fight. But unless you like the thought of more people dying while we argue and snipe at each other, you quit with the attitude,"

Giles stood down, but was still visibly annoyed by Angels disrespect.

"The Senior Partners are the ones who have been planning the Apocalypse for centuries, millennia even. This is it. The big one. The final one. We either win, or the world goes to hell,"

"There is always a apocalypse or another being planned or prophesised. What makes this one any different?" The Immortal queried.

"How many you known other than this one where there are demons all over the streets, attacking everyone, everything in their path? Believe me, this is it," Angel took great pride in telling the Immortal exactly what was happening. He might not have wanted infighting, but he didn't like the immortal. He just plain bugged him. Even more than Xander. The gang looked around at each other. They knew Angel was right. This was it. This was the big one.

Illyria had stopped fighting a while ago. She was insipidly watching the Slayers fight. She was enticed by there soulful power. There were no slayers in her day, and now there were an entire army, almost a separate race from humanity.

As she looked over towards the battle she caught sight of a certain platinum blonde vampire lying in a pile on the floor. Illyria could see her favourite toy was badly broken. This annoyed her, much the same as Wesley's death had. The ancient demon moved toward Spike. Before she could get to him however, Angel and others were standing in front of her.

"Illyria, have you seen Gunn?" Angel asked her.

Illyria simply cocked her head and without a second thought told him "The one known as Gunn is dead,"

Angel looked at her, with sad eyes. "I guess only you and I made it then..."

"No, the annoying one is over there," Illyria pointed as she said this.

Every one turned to see Spike in a pile on the floor.

"Spike?!" Buffy exclaimed. "But he's- why didn't you say anything?" She addressed the question to Angel.

"I thought he was dead. Didn't seem any point in telling you he had been alive if he was dead again," Angel seemed almost sheepish in his response, as if he knew had done the wrong thing.

"Well don't you think I deserve to know?" Buffy had a tone of anger in her voice not unheard by Angel. It was the same one she had used when he had tried to protect her from a vengeful Indian spirit.

"I didn't see the point in telling you something that would make you react like this. We got an apocalypse here now Buffy, and it's not that important in the grand scheme," Angel tried to justify himself.

"I'm not blind Angel. I get there is an apocalypse. Chosen one remember? It's kinda what I do," Buffy had made her point. She could sense Angel knew he was wrong. And with that the point was dropped. "You still should have told me. Xander, go help him,"

"Help him too Illyria," Angel told the ancient goddess.

Illyria stopped, turned to Angel. "Do not forget who I am, half breed. You may be a leader, but I am a God." And with that Illyria moved on towards Spike. Not because she was told too, but because it suited her.

"I just can't win today," Angel muttered under his breath.

Illyria and Xander picked up Spike, with one arm around each of them.

"Good to see you pet..." Spike groggily told Illyria.

"Silence, you are near death. Were it not for you're un-dead nature you would be dead," She replied, in her most sympathetic of tones.

Xander smirked. She was like Cordelia had been. He wondered if she had survived. "Hey there big bad. You look like crap," Xander told the vampire.

"Oh God, put a stake in me I'm done," Spike managed too squeeze the words out of his lips. "Why do you have two eye?"

"It is common for the filth that is humanity to have two eyes," Illyria interrupted.

Spike coughed blood. "No, this filth had an eye missing last time I saw him."

"Filth!?" Xander exclaimed.

Illyria looked at the young man. Not unpleasing to her eye, he was however annoying, much like the vampire. "Yes. Your race is that of scavengers, of thieves. It is a lesser race."

"Then why do you fight with us?" Xander asked, as they moved a few more feet, with Spike over both of their shoulders.

"Because it is better than the alternative. I no longer fit with the Old Ones, nor do I belong to humanity. I must fight to find a place in the world," Illyria told him.

"Oh Christ, you've got her started now..." For all his wounds Spike was still on his game when using his wit.

Elsewhere;

Deep under the battleground of L.A., a solitary figure stood in the middle of a room.

It was an old room, centuries old if not more.

The demon, as it was, stood at eight feet tall, and was a reddish colour. Not un-similar to Cyrus Vail in colour, the demon resembled Marcus Hamilton much more in actual appearance. He had long blood-drenched hair, with fangs not unlike those of a vampire. They were visible as he smiled.

It was at hand. His rising.